


Revenant

by Just_One_Of_Clockwork_Thoughts



Category: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha | Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, RWBY
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-04-17 06:19:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14182743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_One_Of_Clockwork_Thoughts/pseuds/Just_One_Of_Clockwork_Thoughts
Summary: Ruby Rose disappeared at age three, lost in the woods of the island of Patch. Twelve years later, Ruby Nakajima of the Saint Church of Belka crash-lands on Remnant, the last living member of the Dimensional Warship Archon's crew. With contact to both the Saint Church and the TSAB cut off, she is forced to turn to a local mage named Ozpin, and a family she never had a chance to know.Cross-posted from my Fanfiction.net account.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, everyone, and welcome to more of my writing!
> 
> Now, I'd really like to thank Eleventh Messenger on FF.net for their wonderful fic Hazredous Interruptions, as that's what directly inspired this fic of my own. If you've got the time, I highly recommend it.
> 
> Lastly, I know it's been a while since I've seen any of Lyrical Nanoha (I haven't watched anything since ViVid when it first came out), so if/when I get something wrong, please let me know, and I'll correct my error!
> 
> Also, nobody worry about my other fics, they are still in progress. In fact, they are being rewritten to an extent, as I have improved immensely since first beginning my fics. They'll be edited when they are complete.
> 
> Without further ado (and anymore of me babbling),  
> Enjoy!

...

...

Blood. Blood was the first thing she noticed as she returned to something resembling full consciousness. It dripped from the shaft of the scythe in the Knight's left hand, ran in thin streams from the claws jutting out from the fingers of her right. It decorated the interior of the Archon's bridge in streaks and splashes, formed puddles under bodies, not all intact. It warmed her face and matted her red-black hair, gave her Knight's Armor a grisly pattern.

She slowly looked around, retracting her weapons into her fingers with a wet metal sound. Everything had fallen silent, and she stood alone, everyone and everything else dead. At least, she hoped so.

Her left hand, revealed by damage to her Armor, came up to rub at the bare metal of her right arm, also revealed, the metal on metal sound snapping her completely into the present, and she doubled over, fighting to keep from vomiting, moving the hand to her mouth. Some of the bodies around her were her friends, her comrades, men and women she'd worked with almost intimately for months at the absolute shortest, some she'd known for nearly a decade, more than half her still-young life. And some, slowly liquefying into black puddles, were the monsters who'd butchered them, who'd made her let Alice loose again.

" _Focus, master."_ Her Intelligent Device's soft, feminine voice sounded in her head. " _I don't mean to sound cold or rude, but there are more incoming. You have minutes at most."_

She just continued to look around, stunned and overwhelmed.

 **_Focus. Stand firm, and focus. Now is not the time. I hate to say this, but you must mourn them later._ ** Another voice _-her Lord's voice-_ in her mind snapped her out of the near-catatonia, and she felt herself detaching from the situation. It was still there, of course, but felt more like it was happening to someone else.

"Yeah… Yeah. Okay." She spoke aloud, her voice shaking as she straightened up. "I.."

" _Center command console is still functional. FTL Communications are still online."_ Her Device spoke up again. She staggered over to it, leaning on the console for support.

" _Just… Tell me what I need to do."_

" _Already working… Done. Channel open, urgent distress frequency."_ She straightened up again, noticing the holograms spring into being above the console. Directly in front of her, they read [Channel Open - Transmitting].

A deep breath, then;

"This is the TSAB Battleship Archon to anyone on this frequency, over." She didn't know what else to say. Her training hadn't covered this. None of the things she'd been taught applied here and now.

The reply took several seconds.

"Archon, this is Admiral Harlaown of the TSAB Claudia. Authenticate, your vessel is flagged as lost, presumed destroyed." A familiar voice responded. She latched onto it, needing the stability familiarity provided.

"Chrono, it's me, it's Ruby. I don't… I don't have the codes. Everyone's dead, it's just me left." She partially collapsed onto the console, causing the holograms to flicker. Her voice was hollow, she noticed in her detached state.

"Ruby!? By the Saint King, I thought you were dead, we all did! Where are you, where's the Archon?"

"I don't…" " _Rosenkreuz, where are we?"_ The question was addressed to her Device, still in her scythe configuration.

" _Unknown. While I have determined our location in our current system, I do not recognize the system, nor am I aware of precisely where we are. General coordinates only, sending now."_

"That's-" Chrono was cut off by an explosion behind Ruby. "What was that?"

"Mariage units encountering a few obstacles of the explosive sort." Rosenkreuz spoke up. "We're running out of time."

"Mariage? Shit." Chrono, quite uncharacteristically, swore. "Here, too…"

"Yeah." Ruby pushed herself off the console and tapped a few of the holographic buttons, attempting to open up a visual communication line. The computer beeped at her, informing her the equipment was too damaged to do so. "We were attacked from… I don't know where. Engineering went silent, then the Living Quarters, and then they hit the Bridge. Captain and XO died quick, those of us who survived took what we could from the Armory and what was left of the LQ, then barricaded ourselves in Medical about the same time the ship made a Dimensional Jump. After we felt the ship drop out of the Sea, we made an attempt to take back the Bridge. Given I'm talking to you right now…"

"You succeeded. But there's still Mariage onboard." Chrono's tone indicated that he didn't like where this was going.

"Yeah. And I can't fight them all off on my own."

"Ruby?" Chrono sounded both worried and confused. "What are you-" Ruby cut him off. She knew what she needed to do.

"Admiral Harlaown, as the last living member of the Archon's crew, I'm requesting permission to scuttle the ship."

A few seconds of silence passed, before another explosion sounded, closer this time.

"How?" Chrono's voice dropped to a near whisper.

"There's a planet nearby that seems to possess a natural AMF, and I'm going to crash the Archon into it. Hopefully the impact'll kill the all the Mariage, and even if not, there won't be a ship for them to take anymore."

"Ruby, you do realize that means-"

"I know." There was a brief pause.

"Saint King protect you." Chrono told her in Belkan, sighed, and spoke again. "You know the system won't allow non-officers to helm the ship under lockdown?"

"I was about to ask you how to deactivate it." Ruby admitted.

"You'd have to be a Lieutenant Commander or higher to do so. No, I've got a better idea."

"Chrono?"

"Knight Ruby Nakajima of the Saint Church of Belka." Chrono stated, using her full name and rank. "I am here by field commissioning you as an officer of the Time-Space Administration Bureau Dimensional Navy, at the Rank of Second Lieutenant. The command codes appropriate to your rank are being uploaded to your Device through this terminal now."

"Received." Rosenkreuz's red 'eye' at the top of her shaft flashed twice as the Device spoke aloud for the first time.

"Thank you, Admiral." Ruby turned as a third explosion sounded, very close this time. She pushed herself off of the console, staggered over to and sat in the Captain's chair, pulling up the holographic controls and setting a course onto the planet. The ship rumbled deeply as the engines activated. "Do me one last favor, please?"

"Name it." Came the immediate response.

"Say goodbye to everyone for me. And tell Cinque… Tell her…" Ruby trailed off, hoping Chrono would understand what she was trying to say.

"I will. I promise."

"Thank you." Ruby took a deep breath, steeling herself. "This is goodbye, then. I'll see you in the next life."

"Godspeed, Ruby."

The comm cut out as the Archon entered the planet's AMF, the wards damaged from the battles onboard and unable to protect the ship. The sound of straining metal reached Ruby's ears as the damaged sections of the ship began to fail under the stress of orbital reentry. She reinforced her Knight's Armor, repairing the damaged sections and replacing destroyed layers.

" _Sorry, Rosenkreuz. Didn't think we'd go out like this."_

" _I don't regret a thing, Master."_

Ruby smiled, and converted Rosenkreuz to her storage form: a metal cross with a single round, blood red gem in the center of where the arms met. Hopefully, the more compact form would cause the Device to be damaged less by the impact. She clipped Rosenkreuz to her belt, and looked back up, setting her hands in her lap.

She didn't have long to wait.

The impact threw her from the Captain's chair into the bloodstained ceiling, and everything went black.

…

…

"Hey, Oz, I'm at the crash site, and if there's one thing I'm not seein' it's Atlas markings. Pretty sure this isn't one of Jimmy's." Qrow Branwen told the man on the other end of the call as he picked his way through the metal debris that had once been a corridor.

About an hour ago - _almost dinnertime-_ , he'd been his way back to civilization from another fruitless hunt when, rather suddenly, a rather massive airship of a design he didn't recognize had flown from absolutely nowhere and slammed into a mountain, creating a rather spectacular sight, and rather surprisingly staying mostly intact afterwards.

Qrow being a curious but cautious sort, he'd immediately dialed up his friend, mentor, and boss Ozpin, and asked if Atlas, the only kingdom he could think of that'd build an airship this big, had any ships passing through Vale territory at the moment. Ozpin had told him no, and asked him to investigate. Qrow being Qrow, he'd wanted answers and wouldn't tell Ozpin no, so he'd said yes and gone to check it out.

So far, though, he'd seen nothing but a lot of wreckage and bodies, some in varying states of dismemberment, some burnt, which bothered him a bit, but was to be expected in such a crash. It's what he hadn't seen that unnerved him; no identifying markings of any sort. And he couldn't even identify the language on a few intact signs and labels on the walls. Considering that he was trilingual, speaking all commonly used languages of Remnant save Atlesian, which he could at least recognize, that was a distinctly unnerving detail.

He shook his thoughts out of his head as Ozpin replied.

"I am unaware of any other Kingdom what would build something like this ship, let alone conceal it."

"Yeah, true, but there's a few things not adding up. Anyway, there's a more intact section up ahead, I'll keep you posted." He clipped the scroll to his belt, keeping the call open.

Normally, he'd have shapeshifted into his crow form, but he didn't want to run the risk of others showing up and seeing that, so he settled for exploring normally.

It took several minutes of picking his way through the damaged but remarkably intact airship before he came to a large blast door, mostly intact, though stuck partly open. He pulled his scroll off his belt.

"Think I'm at the ship's Bridge. Door's open, and I'm going in."

He pulled Bad Luck Charm from it's position on his lower back one-handed, extended the blade, and slipped between the doors.

_This is the Bridge, I was right._

He glanced around, slowly, notice the very large amount of bodies, and that most of them weren't burnt, but were all dismembered or disemboweled to varying degrees.

"Lot of bodies in here." He quietly told Oz, carefully picking his way through the corpses and mechanical debris.

He was nearing the most intact console when his instincts told him to freeze.

And as he did so, sometime moved behind him. Two sharp metal edges pressed against his the front of his throat, two more against the back of his neck, and he immediately tried to turn before light pressure convinced him not to. Or rather, to consider his options first. He could-

"Nicht bewegen. Wer bist du?" The- _person, apparently_ \- behind him asked him something. What he'd been asked, he had no clue. The voice, on the other hand, sounded quite familiar. For half a second, he thought it was Summer, and nearly turned despite the metal blades on his throat. _No. It's not her. Too high pitched, too young_.

The thought had no sooner crossed his mind than another did.

 _Wait, like Summer but too young, it's not-_ He tried to turn again, and the blades tightened again.

"Ich sagte, beweg dich nicht. Wo bin ich und wer bist du?" The voice asked him.

"I can't understand you." Qrow told the voice, not moving. "Do you speak Valian?"

"Valian? Ich verstehe dich nicht wirklich."

"Mistralian? Vacuo?"

"Sind diese Sprachen, Vogelmann?"

"Ja, ist er. Ich bin Ozpin von der Beacon Akademie und du bist in von der Welt der Remnant. Das Königreich Vale, um genau zu sein. Bitte kooperiere mit diesem Mann und zeige deine Identität. Er wird dich zu mir bringen, junger Ritter von Belka, und ich werde es erklären." Ozpin abruptly entered the not-really-a conversation through Qrow's scroll, speaking the same unrecognized language as the girl.

"Ich kenne Remnant oder dein Vale nicht, aber ich werde deine Bitte respektieren. Für jetzt bitte ich nur, dass du mir sagst, wenn wir uns treffen, wie du weißt, dass ich ein Ritter bin."

The blades came away from his throat, and a wet metal sound announced that they'd probably slid back into housings of some sort.

Qrow spun around rapidly as the girl spoke again.

"Ich bin Ritter Ruby Nakajima von der Heiliger Kirche von Belka, dem Dimensionalen Kriegsschiff Archon zugewiesen."

The girl was the spitting image of a fifteen-year-old Summer Rose, save for clothes (damaged black and red armor of some sort, bloodstained as well) and hair length (down past her shoulders, he couldn't see more). _It is! It's her!_

"Ruby?" Qrow asked with a shaking voice.

"Ja, das bin ich." The girl _-Ruby!-_ looked at him as he said her name. No, she didn't look at him, she looked through him with a thousand-yard stare.

"Do you… Do you remember me?" Qrow asked, taking half a step forward, towards his long-lost niece, collapsing Bad Luck Charm as he did so, and sliding the weapon back onto his back.

"Ich kann dich immer noch nicht verstehen."

She said, and took a few steps backwards, confusion lightly writing itself across her face as she noticed his expression. "Was ist los mit dir? Warum schaust du mich so an?"

"Qrow. Don't try and tell her yet." Ozpin's voice interrupted Qrow again.

"Wait, what? Why?" He turned half-away, and took his scroll from his belt, holding it up so he could see the screen.

"For one, we don't know her circumstances. For all we know, that isn't really your niece, and even if she is, she probably doesn't remember or recognize you, and won't anyone else either. She may not even know where she's from, or that she's not from… Wherever she went, if she really is her." The headmaster told him, ever the wise and collected man. "Please, Qrow. Focus. If you can, bring her to me, we need to speak. At least, I'd like to speak with her."

"Yeah… Yeah. I get it." Qrow took a deep breath, and closed his eyes for a few seconds before returning his gaze to his scroll. "Alright, I'll get her out of here. Was going to anyway."

"Knew I-"There was indistinct noise in the background from Ozpin's side, interrupting him. "I need to go. Never a dull moment as the headmaster of a Hunter Academy." Ozpin snarked, and cut the call. Qrow began to ponder possibilities for communicating with Ruby, given that neither spoke the other's language.

"I think I can understand you now." Ruby's voice derailed his train of thought, the strange language she spoke still audible, but drowned out by a louder version of her own voice that spoke Valian. Qrow glanced over at her. _Problem solved, apparently._

She'd taken the cross off of her belt, which had unfolded several sections to point up, above which were bright red holographic screens.

"Well, I could understand that." Qrow told her, mouth twitching at a smile. He heard his own voice, in the same language she spoke.

"And I could understand that. Please allow me to reintroduce myself." Ruby said, and straightened up. "Knight Ruby Nakajima of the Saint Church of Belka, assigned to the Dimensional Warship Archon. I presume that-"

_What._

"Okay, okay, slow down. First off, my name's Qrow, Qrow Branwen, and second, what the hell are you talking about?" Qrow was, to put it mildly, confused. _And what kind of a name is Nakajima?_

"I am Knight Ruby Nakajima of the Saint Church of Belka, assigned to the Dimensional Warship Archon. I don't know why you are confused."

"Knight?" Qrow asked. "Of a church?"

"Correct." Ruby nodded. "The Saint Church has a small number of combat personnel, and in keeping in with Belkan traditions, we are called Knights. We work closely with the TSAB Armed Forces, hence my assignment to this vessel, the Dimensional Warship Archon." As she spoke, the girl leaned backwards, against what remained of a console.

"Okay, ignoring that last part for now, does that mean you're basically a heavily-armed nun or something?" The corner of Ruby's mouth turned up slightly.

"Not quite, as I chose not to become a nun, but close enough."

"Alright. Next question: what the hell's a 'Belka'?"

"Well, that alone tells me this isn't an Administrated World, not that that says much." Ruby noted, folding her arms across her chest, the metal-on-metal sound partially catching Qrow's attention, but not enough to distract him for her comment.

"Explain, please." He asked.

"Belka, The Belkan Empire, Ancient Belka, whatever you want to call it, was, until about five hundred years ago, the major dimension-faring power in known space. It began to fall when Belka itself vanished, and completely fell when the last of the Saint Kings, Olivie Sägebrecht," Ruby bowed her head briefly, before resuming, "martyred herself to end the Unification Wars. The Saint Church is the modern successor to Belka's traditions, and we are guided by Olivie's teachings." _I don't even know._

"Alright then… Dimensional warship Archon? I'm presuming that's this ship, but what the hell's a Dimensional warship?" Was his next question, as he leaned against the side of a still-intact chair, the captain's chair, if he had to guess, arms crossed but still holding onto his scroll.

"A spacefaring warship designed to be able to travel the Dimensional Sea between worlds." She glanced off to the side. "Look, can we get out of here? I don't want to be here any longer, and we can talk elsewhere."

Qrow followed her gaze, and noticed that she was staring with obvious distress at a few of the corpses almost littering the floor.

"Yeah… Yeah, let's go." He agreed. _I don't want to run into whatever killed them..._

_..._

_..._

"So this 'Dimensional Sea' is the gap between worlds?"

"Correct. It is analogous to space, and Dimensional Jumps are sometimes thought to simply be a way of traveling through space at FTL speeds via dimensional transfer." Ruby responded to Qrow's question as the two walked down the damaged corridor, Qrow on the left and Ruby on the right. "In fact, that is the current position of most scientific think tanks and major universities within Administrated Space."

"FTL?" Qrow didn't have any idea what she was talking about, and was beginning to accept that that was the normal state of affairs.

"Faster Than Light. Under standard protocol, I'd currently be using the ship's Faster-Than-Light communication system to call for help, but it was damaged in the crash." The knight stated matter-of-factly, every few seconds tapping the metal cross, which was still apparently serving as a translator, but was now clipped to her belt.

"Right. I keep forgetting that you don't seem to have much respect for the laws of physics." Qrow noted wish no small amount of sarcasm, then frowned. "You still haven't told me why-"

Abruptly, Qrow stopped. Something was wrong, and Ruby seemed to feel it too, as she stopped just as suddenly.

The door on their right side was ripped from its tracks with a screech of straining metal, and hurled towards Qrow, who barely managed to dodge in time, the metal slab embedding itself in the wall behind him.

"Umkommen." The voice, left untranslated by the device Ruby carried, was metallic, synthesized, but still carried such an air of menace in its utterly chilling tone that it gave him pause. What truly made his stop, however, was what had spoken. A woman stood there, moderately tall, short brown hair, wearing an odd short robe or dress of some kind, armored but lacking sleeves, armored gloves making up for part of that lack. A strange visor covered the upper part of her face, concealing her eyes, but that was not what nearly stopped him cold. No, it was her injuries that did so; horrific as they were. The right side of her face had been torn away up to the bottom of the mask, revealing bloody flesh and bone. Her right arm had lost all skin, revealing gleaming metal and black muscle, and a gaping hole through her chest shown broken wires, ripped metal, and tattered flesh in equal measure. _The fuck?_

As he stared, her gaze swing around to Ruby, who was currently nearly doubled over, her head in her hands and whimpering.

"Umkommen." The strange woman repeated, and as Qrow watched, her right arm from the elbow on down morphed into a blade, before she swing the sword-arm at Ruby.

Qrow moved, drawing Bad Luck Charm as fast as he possibly could-

There was a resounding clang are Ruby's left hand shot out to block the blade, catching it with the inside of her hand. From as close as he was, Qrow could see that the glove she wore had disappeared, revealing bare metal.

"Ende." Ruby's tone was the same as the woman's, and he heard the same metal sound from when Ruby had held him at knife-point earlier, before she slashed her right hand up and across the woman's face, spraying blood in streaks and shredding the strange mask. The woman did not stagger or give any response other than drawing back her blade, as if to wind up for another swing. This proved to be a mistake.

With her now-free left hand, Ruby reached into the hole in the woman's chest, and plunged her fingers into the side of the hole, ripping it further open, as her right hand stabbed into the woman's throat.

Now the woman staggered back, ripping Ruby's fingers from her body, causing even further damage.

"Stirb auf den Nägeln des Schlächters." Ruby told her, and, stepping forward, plunged both hands into her already-torn-open throat, before ripping in opposite directions, decapitating the woman.

Qrow stood in place, his mouth slightly open. He'd seen some brutal things in his life, even having recently seen a girl get half of her soul ripped out, but he'd never seen humans or faunus visiting such visceral violence upon each other. It took him a second to speak again.

"What the fuck was that!?" Ruby turned to him, and he was struck by the crazed expression on her face, mixed with tears flowing from slit-pupiled eyes. _The hell!?_

"That… Was a Mariage. A dead thing made for the purpose of killing." Ruby told him, her expression slowly returning to the blank, neural expression she'd had earlier, and her eyes returning to normal. "The things that hijacked this ship. I had to crash the Archon to try and kill them." She looked down at the floor a brief moment, then glanced up again. "The things that murdered my friends."

Qrow continued to just stare at her for a few seconds, before shaking his head as he came to a realization. _What does that mean, 'a dead thing made for killing'? Wait… So, these 'Mariage' are what killed everyone else here and left all the bodies all over the place. No wonder Ruby ripped it apart._

"Yeah, that I understand." He then came to a second realization. "Wait, how did you…" He gestured at the corpse. "Do that without a weapon?" He did not expect Ruby to give him a sickly smile in response.

"Who says I didn't use a weapon?" Qrow cocked his head in confusion, and Ruby brought her hands up, palms facing upwards. As he looked close at her hands in confusion, he saw the weapon she had used on the 'Mariage'. Or rather, weapons.

Thin blades ran down the inside of every finger, extending to a full inch afterwards, meeting blades projecting from her fingertips, lengthening them by another two or so inches. The knife-edges gleamed dark with blood, running in thin rivulets down the blades and around her fingers to drip from the backs of her hands.

The blades weren't the only things he noticed. Her hands were metal, not flesh, quite obviously cybernetic replacements. It reminded him of Ironwood's right hand in a way, save that Ruby's hands somehow seemed more advanced, though that may have been influenced by the technology he'd seen on the ship and that had been described in detail to him, though he still didn't really believe her, thinking that he was getting played for some unknown reason.

Out of curiosity, he gently prodded one of the blades, and was rewarded with a light slice across his finger, even through his Aura, and despite the fact that Ruby's hand hadn't moved at all.

"The hell?" Qrow drew is hand back, sticking the cut finger into his mouth, and returned his gaze to Ruby's face, noting the edge of her mouth twitching in amusement. "Okay, two things; One, what happened to your hands; and Two; What the hell is with your finger blades? I just cut myself through my Aura on that, and that's not supposed to be possible."

Ruby let out a snort of something approaching amusement, and she dropped her hands to her sides before responding.

"In answer to your first question, I was caught in a terrorist attack, a bombing, about two years ago. Having nearly completed my training as a Knight, I chose duty to help over personal safety, and ran in to help, thinking my Knight's Clothing would be enough to protect me. When the second wave of explosives went off, I learned it was not. At least, not when you are standing directly next to one of the bombs, anyway." She stated, as if it didn't particularly matter, and began to walk down the hallway again. "It took nearly a month to put me back together again, and that was by the premier expert in cybernetics in Administrated Space, a man named Jail Scaglietti and his daughter Uno. Don't bother asking after him, by the way. Everything related to him beyond that is classified." She added.

"Alright… And the second question?" Qrow asked asked, catching up and keeping pace easily.

"That ties into the first, actually. When Jail and Uno were putting me back together, Jail, for reasons beyond me, decided that as a Knight, I needed some kind of built-in weapon. When Uno asked me, during one of my brief instances of regaining consciousness, if I would like such a weapon installed within my cybernetics, I said yes. I did not anticipate the weapon in question being claws of a sort… Or that the Butcher's Nails, as these are called, would be so deadly." Ruby told him, again raising her hands to show him that she still hadn't retracted the blades, now named as the 'Butcher's Nails'.

"That wasn't my question." Qrow clarified, not bothering to touch the subject of the blades' ominous name. "I was asking how I cut myself through my Aura on them."

"If by Aura you mean the crude Mana shield you're covered with, the answer to that's simple. The Butcher's Nails have a natural Anti-Magilink effect, and an incredibly strong one at that."

"Mana shield? Anti-Magilink?"

Ruby threw him a look of puzzlement.

"Mana is the basic energy of magic. An Anti-Magilink effect damages the bonds of Mana, making it harder to cast spells, and damages existing ones. This planet has a weak natural Anti-Magilink Field." She answered slowly, as she retracted the Butcher's Nails into her hands.

_Wait, WHAT!?_

Qrow stopped dead in his tracks.

"Magic." He said slowly. "Honest-to-god magic. That's what you're talking about?"

Ruby gave him another very slow, measured look.

"I think I need to stop talking." With that, she fell silent, and no further attempts from Qrow could get her to talk again.

…

…

"A'right, we're clear of the wreck, wave g'bye!" The odd tiltjet VTOL pilot's cheery voice rang out, translated by Rosenkreuz.

Ruby snorted. _Some hell of a goodbye, coming up._

Ruby, during the walk out of the Archon, discovered that she and Rosenkreuz had, at some point, regained control over the battleship's weaponry.

_I can't risk any of the Mariage leaving intact. Not after… Not after that._

" _Rosenkreuz, are you still connected to the Archon's fire control systems?"_ She asked her Device, thanking the Kaiser that her cybernetics allowed her to communicate with her Device regardless of the planet's AMF. Without the electronic telepathy, she'd have much less privacy talking with her Device. While she was confident that neither the Guardian Beast who called himself 'Qrow' nor the pilot knew Belkan or Midchildan, she was very unwilling to risk being recorded and translated. The only one she even remotely trusted was the man who called himself 'Ozpin', though she didn't know why his Guardian Beast didn't know much about magic or really any other well-known topics in modern society.

" _Yes, Master. Links to secondary weapons batteries still active. Actually, the secondary batteries are still remarkably intact, and the main gun is almost completely undamaged!"_ The Device sounded quite happy with this fact.

" _Can you trigger a feedback loop in the power supply for the main gun?"_

" _Yes, I can! And we're outside the potential blast radius, too. Tell me when!"_ If anything, the exuberance in Rosenkreuz's 'voice' increased.

" _As soon as possible."_ Ruby told her Device, glancing out the window at the remains of the Archon.

" _I thought you might say that, so I've been holding the system on the edge of destabilization! Detonation in five! Four! Three!"_

Ruby turned completely, gazing out the window. She couldn't help it, she liked explosions. She liked them a lot, in fact. To the extent it occasionally worried her trainers, Knight Carim in particular. Knight Maximilian, on the other hand, often encouraged her.

" _Two! One! Detonation!"_

…

…

" _That was disappointing. A bright and flashy disintegration more than anything, just an iridescent sphere of light that didn't leave much behind. I wanted a fireball, damnit!"_

" _Oh, well. Maybe next time we cause an explosion, Master!"_

…

...

"Ich nehme an, du bist Ozpin?" Ruby spoke aloud again as she entered the office at the top of Vale's Cross-Continental Communication Tower, her question directed to Ozpin, standing behind his desk and staring out the window at the last fading remains of the sunset, as if waiting for the two.

Qrow had been frustrated repeatedly during the bullhead ride to Beacon after the ship had blown up, and during the walk to the CCT. Even during the elevator ride up, she'd said nothing, simple gazed down at the holographic screens projected above her strange ornate cross, evidently her society's equivalent of scrolls. She'd even switched off the translation system. _Though, at least she cleaned the blood off her face..._

"Ja das bin ich. Ich nehme an, du bist Ritter Ruby. Bitte nehmen Sie Platz." Ozpin turned and gestured to a chair in front of his desk, and as Ruby sat down, took his own seat. Qrow leaned against a wall, groaning. _The same language as earlier. Oh, this'll be fascinating…_

"I'll translate a bit." The headmaster assured him, then turned back to Ruby.

"Ich entschuldige mich nicht dafür, dass ich den Archon gesprengt habe. Vorschriften hindern mich daran, die Überreste des Schiffes in unbefugte Hände fallen zu lassen." Ruby told him immediately after. Ozpin chuckled.

"Das war im Moment keine meiner Sorgen." He tilted his head towards Qrow. "She just said she isn't apologizing for blowing up her ship." The headmaster turned back to Ruby. "Eigentlich wollte ich ein paar Fragen beantworten, um die Dinge für uns beide einfacher zu machen. Zunächst einmal die offensichtlichste Frage. Warum spreche ich Belkan?" The headmaster said.

"Du bist ein Magier, nehme ich an. Ich kann die Verbindung zwischen dir und dem Wächterbiest namens Qrow fühlen." She gestured to Qrow as she said his name. Ozpin chuckled again.

"She knows I'm a magic user." He observed to Qrow. "She also keeps referring to you as a 'Guardian Beast'. It's Belkan terminology, don't worry about it. Just know, if she says 'Wächerbiest', she's referring to you." Ozpin returned his attention to Ruby.

"Du hast recht, obwohl er kein normaler Wächterbiest ist und ich kein normaler Magier bin. Ich bin selbst Ritter, und ich würde dich fragen: Wie geht es Belka?" Ozpin asked, his face earnest for once, and Qrow could see how excited he was for Ruby's answer. He could also see how Ruby's face turned ashen, and she hung her head, speaking her next words in a whisper.

"Es tut mir leid, Wolkenritter. Das Imperium ist gefallen, vor einhundert standardjahren."

Ozpin didn't move for a moment, didn't even blink as his eyes teared up.

"Was ist passiert?" He whispered in turn. _Wait, what? What did you say, Ruby?_

"Krieg. Als Belka in einer Dimensionalen Verzerrung verloren ging, fiel das Imperium auseinander. Nach hunderten von Jahren Krieg, Olivie Sägebrecht, der letzte Heilige Kaiser, starb der Märtyrer, um die Kriege zu stoppen. Mit ihrem Tod war das Imperium nicht mehr." She reached across the desk, and grasped his right hand in both of hers, the knuckles of his turning white from how hard his hand gripped hers. "Es tut mir Leid, Wolkenritter. Aber weißt du das, du bist nicht allein."

Qrow slipped off the wall, and walked over to his friend and mentor, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. _Chin up, Oz._

"Oz?" He asked, softly.

"Belka's gone. It's gone. My home's gone. Wer ist noch übrig?" Ozpin asked, his voice brittle.

"Signum, Shamal, Vita und Zafira. Der Wolkenritter klammerte sich an den Wälzer des Nachthimmels. Das Buch der Dunkelheit überlebte, obwohl es in den Wälzer des Nachthimmels gereinigt wurde. Die unzerstörbare Dunkelheit lebt noch. Ich glaube, sie macht gerade humanitäre Arbeit.”  At that, Ozpin's head jerked up.

"Ich bin nicht alleine?"   
"Nein, bist du nicht. Ich entschuldige mich dafür, dass ich dir jetzt nicht erlauben kann, mit ihnen zu sprechen, aber meine Verbindung mit dem Buch des Nachthimmels wurde durch das Antimagiefeld dieser Welt unterbrochen."

"Das ist nicht nötig." Ozpin shook his head, his emotions seeming to come back under control. He slipped his hand out from Ruby's, who returned her hands to her lap. Qrow took his hand off Ozpin's shoulder after giving it one more comforting pat.

"Möchtest du ein anderes Mal sprechen?" Ruby queried.

"Ja. Nur eine letzte Frage, Wenn Belka gefallen ist, für wen kämpfst du, Ritter?"

"Nur weil Belka weg ist, heißt das nicht, dass die Traditionen des Imperiums sind. Ich bin ein Ritter der Belkan Heiliger Kirche, nach den Lehren von Olivie Sägebrecht und, für diejenigen von uns, die Waffen tragen, die kriegerischen Traditionen des Imperiums. Wir sind daher stolz, uns Ritter der Kirche zu nennen, und unser Glaube ist so standhaft wie unsere Magie und unsere Klingen." Ruby stated, as her right hand formed a fist she placed over her heart.

"Gut gesagt, Ritter." Ozpin told her after a few seconds, giving a very small smile, as Ruby dropped her hand down again. _I really gotta learn this language._

"What'd she say?" Qrow stage-whispered his query.

"She was… She spoke about the Saint Church of Belka." The headmaster responded, as if he wasn't quite sure how to put it.

"Ah." Qrow nodded, still curious, but not particularly willing to ask further right that moment.

"Ich selbst habe jetzt nur eine Frage, der Rest kann warten. Wo werde ich jetzt einquartiert sein? Meine Kybernetik benötigt Wartung." Ruby was the one to ask this question, her third since her arrival in the office. Ozpin deliberated a few seconds before responding, addressing Qrow first.

"She's asking if there's a place for her to do maintenance on her cybernetics." He turned back to Ruby again.

"Wenn Sie sofortige Hilfe benötigen, dann ist die Krankenstation hier in Beacon, obwohl sie nicht ganz den Standards des Imperiums entspricht, noch ziemlich weit fortgeschritten. Wenn nicht, dann würde ich dir eine Frage stellen."

"Und diese Frage ist?"

Ozpin hesitated briefly before responding, folding his hands over the desk.

"Weißt du wo du herkommst?" At this, Ruby looked confused.

"Was?"

"Machst du?"

"Nein…" She trailed off, tilting her head in apparent confusion before speaking again. "Warum fragst du mich das?"

Ozpin took a breath, and let it out slowly before replying, taking out his scroll as he did so, and pulling up an image Qrow knew well. _So, you're telling her, huh?_

"Dieses ist eine Fotografie einer Frau, die Summer Rose genannt wird. Ihre Tochter Ruby ist vor zwölf Jahren verschwunden, nicht lange nach ihrem Tod." Ozpin flipped the scroll around, showing Ruby the picture on the screen.

Ruby's response, however, was not remotely expected.

"Hmm. Es scheint also, dass dies die Welt ist, in der ich geboren wurde. In Ordnung." She shrugged, not seeming impressed, confused, or really much at all. "Um ehrlich zu sein, ist es nicht sehr wichtig für mich. Warum zeigst du mir das? Du hast mir gesagt, dass sie tot ist."

"Sie ist, ja. Aber der Rest ihrer Familie ist es nicht." Ozpin told Ruby, only for her to wince.

"Ich habe bereits zwei Familien, die erste ist ziemlich groß; Die Heilige Kirche von Belka. Ich habe viele Brüder und Schwestern im Ritterkorps und im Priestertum, Mütter und Väter in ihnen, Tanten und Onkel in der Verwaltung, sogar Großeltern in den höheren Rängen des Klerus. Die zweite, in die ich geheiratet habe, und die Nakajimas sind immer noch groß für eine konventionelle Familie." Ruby declared, and Ozpin raised an eyebrow at the last sentence, which Ruby noticed. "Ich bin im heiratsfähigen Zeitalter, wenn auch nur knapp." She seemed to be assuring Ozpin of something. "Außerdem ist es für mich nicht sehr wichtig, was Sie zu diesem Thema zu sagen haben. Cinque und ich haben geheiratet und das ist es." She told him, and Ozpin's mouth quirked up in a smile.

_What? What'd she say?_

"Es ist immer besser, etwas zu haben, wofür man kämpfen kann. Aber das war nicht die Richtung, in die ich ging. Ich wollte dich eigentlich bitten, bei ihnen zu bleiben." At this, Ruby seemed to become immensely confused.

"Warte, was? Warum?"

"Zwei Gründe. Eine, um Ihnen einen Überblick über Remnant hier zu geben. Wie du wahrscheinlich bemerkt hast, hat Remnant kein wirkliches Konzept von Magie und keinen Kontakt mit anderen Welten. Sie müssen einen Weg finden, sich anzupassen, und dort kommen sie ins Spiel. Das zweite ist mehr aus persönlichen Gründen." Ruby sighed at Ozpin's words before responding.

"Um der Familie eine Art Schliessung zu geben. Deshalb diskutiere ich. Vielleicht haben sie seit Jahren nach mir gesucht, aber ich wurde erst jetzt auf ihre Existenz aufmerksam gemacht. Ich bin kein ... Rose, ich glaube du hast den Familiennamen als gegeben. Ich bin nur Ruby Nakajima von der Heiliger Kirche von Belka." She sighed again. "Sehr gut. Ich stimme der Bedingung zu, dass sie nicht in meine Vergangenheit eintauchen und dass sie erkennen, dass ich nicht für immer bei ihnen sein werde." Ozpin smiled faintly at that.

"Sie werden auch mit Ihren ... Sprachkenntnissen helfen. Du sprichst Valian nicht, das ist offensichtlich."

Ruby snorted at the headmaster's statement.

"Ich bin gerade erst angekommen. Der einzige Grund, warum ich mit Ihrem Wächter-Biest kommunizieren konnte, ist, dass Rosenkreuz Lücken in Ihrer Netzwerksicherheit fand und ein Sprachwörterbuch mit Übersetzungssoftware heruntergeladen und mit bestehender Übersetz ungssoftware kombiniert hat." Ruby stated with amusement.

"Whar. Also, Ritter Ruby Nakajima von der Heiliger Kirche von Belka, haben wir eine Vereinbarung?" Ozpin asked her.

"Ja, tun wir, Ritter Ozpin des Vale. Ich habe schon zugestimmt." The headmaster smiled, and stood as he spoke.

"Sehr gut. Ich glaube, dass das Geschäft für heute abschließen wird."

"Fast. Auf dieser Reise verfasste ich einen Bericht über die Ereignisse, die zu meinem Versuch führten, den Archon über Gebirge zu versenken. Indem ich sehe, dass Sie die nächste Autorität sind, der ich vertrauen kann, möchte ich eine Kopie in Ihrer Obhut hinterlassen. Wenn du dein Gerät aushältst…" Ruby also stood up, taking the cross off of her belt. Ozpin slid his scroll over the desk, leaving it in front of Ruby.

"Dies ist das lokale Äquivalent. Nicht annähernd so nützlich, aber es ist alles, was ich gerade habe, mein Gerät wurde vor Jahrhunderten zerstört." Ozpin told her, and Ruby held the cross out over his scroll, which beeped a few seconds later.

Ruby clipped the cross back to her belt, bowed, and walked to the elevator.

"Danke für deine Großzügigkeit, Ritter Ozpin. Ich werde im Erdgeschoss auf dein Wächterbiest warten." She added, and tapped a button. The elevator doors slid closed.

Ozpin sighed, and slid back into his chair, his head in his hands.

"Oz? What the hell is all this about?" Qrow finally asked the question that had been on his mind since he'd started investigating the crashed ship.

"A part of my past no one else alive save the Other and I know of, come back very abruptly." Oz told him, which really didn't alleviate Qrow's confusion. Then the headmaster fixed him with a look. "On a note related to Ruby, I have asked her if she would be alright with staying with you and Taiyang for now." Qrow's thought processes stopped dead.

"What."

"I informed her of the continued existence of her family, though not on the composition of the Rose-Branwen-Xiao Long household. That will fall to you." Ozpin smiled up at him.

_Well, fuck._

…

…

"Either you need to learn Valian, or I need to learn Belkan." Qrow told Ruby as the two walked through the Beacon Academy grounds toward the Airdock.

Ruby had been, as she'd apparently told Ozpin, waiting on the ground floor for Qrow, though at some point she'd somehow managed to remove sections of her armor, and Qrow had no idea where they'd went. The only remaining plates were her breastplate, gauntlets, and armored metal boots. The rest was simply black and red cloth, arranged in a pattern that combined a robe and a dress. She'd also donned gloves as well, somehow.

_How did you do that?_

"My learning Valian would be more advantageous in the long run." Ruby responded, apparently having reactivated her translator. "I would be able to understand significantly more during my stay here."

"Yeah, I get that. You don't really count here as home, do you." Qrow didn't have to ask, simply stating it. It was, to him, obvious. She'd not been on Remnant since she was three years old, it stood to reason that she didn't count a world she'd never really known of as home, especially given the way she'd been acting.

Qrow now truly accepted that she had arrived from space. Ozpin had vouched for it, after all, and he trusted the man implicitly. If Ozpin said it was true, it was true. "So, where'll you be going back to, once you can?"

"Midchilda, the TSAB's capital world." Was the immediate response. "The Grand Cathedral to be specific, to check in again and see my family, then... Wherever Cinque wants to go."

"Your family? I did notice that you've introduced yourself as Ruby Nakajima." Qrow was, admittedly, genuinely curious about the life his niece had lived. "Is that the name of the family that adopted you?" He tried to pronounce the world's name as he asked. Ruby chuffed in amusement, like a large dog.

"No. I was raised in an orphanage attached to the Grand Cathedral of the Saint Church of Belka, or in the halls where the Knights trained, as I was becoming one myself. I have two families, but the one I'm talking about having to go see is, to be honest, the entirety of the Church. The Knight Corps and younger clergy are my brothers and sisters, our commanders and the older clerics are my mothers and fathers. The TSAB personnel who work with us are my aunts, uncles and cousins, and the highest ranks of the church are my grandparents. As for the Nakajimas, well… I wouldn't even make it planetside before everyone showed up, no need to go looking. If anything, they'll probably come find me first, before I find my way home." She smiled as she spoke, seeming to be fondly reminiscing about her 'families'.

The two continued in silence for a moment, Ruby apparently about the topic just spoken of, and Qrow about what she'd said.

_Wait, who's Cinque?_

…

...

"We're here." Qrow spoke up a few minutes later, the two having reached the Airdock. A single Bullhead VTOL waited on a landing pad off to the left, the pilot leaning against the side of his craft helmet under his arm. He threw up an arm as Qrow and Ruby approached, to which Qrow waved back at his friend, though Ruby just nodded.

"Hey, Flavius. One more trip for today, we're headin' home to Patch." Qrow told the blonde man, who nodded, Husky ears twitching a bit as he did so.

"Alright, jus' so long as th're's no sudden lightshow this time." The man chuckled. "Load up yer stuff." Ruby nodded at him, and climbed into the tiltjet. "So, you ever goin' to tell me what the hell that was about?" Flavius asked Qrow.

"I wish I could. But this is so friggin' secret not even Glynda can know. Hell, Ironwood's not getting told anything he can't get himself. And, Flav?"

"Yeah?"

"She doesn't exist." Qrow told one of his closest friends in the world, one of a handful of people who knew nearly every secret he had. Hell, this was the guy who'd flown Amber to Beacon after That Bitch had taken half her soul. This was the guy who'd brought over from Atlas all the pieces of Ironwood's Aura Transfer machine. This was a man who had been brought into a conspiracy numbering barely under a dozen people across Remnant. And he still wasn't allowed to know.

"Sorry, who's this 'she' yer talkin' about?" Flavius asked, grinning. Qrow clapped him on the shoulder, glad he understood.

"Thanks, man."

"Any time, Qrow. Any time." Flavius clapped him on the shoulder in return, and slipped his helmet on. "Now, get in. I've been ready fer takeoff since we got here, 'cause I thought I might have to take you guys somewhere. Get in back an' we'll be off, and I'll drop you off in yer backyard."

"Alright, thanks again, Flav." Qrow did as Flavius told him to, pulling out his scroll at the same time. "Have to make a call." He explained as Ruby, sitting in the corner and staring at the holographic screens above her scroll-equivalent, tilted her head to the side.

"Ah." She nodded, and returned her attention to her odd device, tapping a few things on the holographic screens. She then glanced up and spoke again.

"Kannst du mich noch verstehen?"

Qrow gazed down at her blankly, and she nodded, seemingly satisfied, before returning again to the odd scroll-equivalent. He shook his head, and took out his own scroll as he felt the engines start up. _Alright, then._

Qrow flipped through his scroll's screens to his speed dial, and called the second number on the list.

Taiyang Xiao Long answered on the first ring.

"Qrow. What's up, you usually don't call this early at night." Taiyang said. "I'm kinda currently looking after a busload of kids at Signal, waiting for parents to come pick them up, can I call you back?"

"No, you can't, this is kinda urgent. Do we still have that spare guest room set up?"

"Qrow, that sort of thing isn't very urgent. Besides, my class can hear you, and now they're all giggling. Except Yang, she's laughing." Taiyang's voice was very disapproving.

"Wer ist er? Wen rufst du an?" Ruby asked from where she sat in the corner of the Bullhead. The blood red holograms in front of her face gave her a bit of a sinister air, Qrow had to admit.

"Who's that? Qrow?" Now Taiyang sounded confused. "She sounds familiar, but what's she saying?"

"She damn well should be familiar, but I have no idea what she's saying." Qrow told him. "That said, take your scroll off speaker, Tai. This is important enough I haven't had a drink since it all started." There was a click on the other end of the line.

"Alright, I have, and I even walked around the corner of the building. Now, what the hell's going on, Qrow?"

"Er kling wütend, Wätcherbeist. Was hast du gesagt, um ihn so kuzer Zeit zu verärgern?" Ruby added to her previous statement.

"Well, I'll give you a friggn' hint, Tai. I found her in a wrecked ship, and she's her mother's spitting image."

There was a pause if a few seconds before the man on the other end spoke again.

"You're not… You're fucking joking. You're just fucking with me, aren't you." Now Taiyang was pissed off, and it really showed in his voice. "Aren't you?"

"Not a chance in hell, Tai. Even called herself Ruby when we met. I'll send you a fuckin' picture if you don't believe me." Qrow turned, flipped his scroll up, and took a photograph as Ruby looked at him in vague confusion, the metal cross set onto the floor, one hand on her opposite shoulder, the other poised at the edge of a holographic screen. The photo sent immediately, and just seconds later, there was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.

"You weren't. You weren't fucking kidding. My god, you were right. It is her." There was muffled speaking on the other end of the line for several seconds, then Taiyang came back. "Yang and I are on the way home, we'll meet you there. And yeah, there is still a guest bedroom set up. She can… She can have it, permanently if she wants." Taiyang sounded like he was having a hard time not bursting into tears of joy.

"I'll tell her. We're not that far out from Patch, we might beat you home. After all, we're on a Bullhead, coming in from Beacon. I'll tell you everything when we get there."

"I'll be waiting on the porch for the both of you." Taiyang confirmed. "Goddamn, she's finally home."

…

…

"If you could understand me, I'd say 'Welcome home', but I don't think you currently can." Qrow told Ruby, waving back at the VTOL as it receded into the distance, the last of the sunset long gone, the shattered moon in clear view. "Can you?" He glanced back at her.

"Hmm?" She glanced over at him, and turned back towards the house they'd been dropped off behind. "Ich nehme an, das ist dein Haus?"

"I still can't understand you without your translator." Qrow told her, starting to get a bit frustrated with the language barrier. "You really need to learn Valian."

Qrow was prevented from continuing by the sound of a pair of engines pulling up to the front of the house.

"That's probably them." He noted aloud, not particularly caring that Ruby probably couldn't understand him. "Come on." He made a 'follow me' gesture, and set off to the front of the house.

About halfway there, footsteps raced out to meet the two.

"Uncle Qrow! Uncle Qrow! Is it really-" Yang Xiao Long, his eldest niece, skidded around the corner, blond hair even more wild than usual. "My god. It really is." Yang stopped dead, lilac eyes going wide as she saw Ruby standing behind Qrow, who simply regarded her with confusion.

"RUBY!" She practically roared as she launched forwards, arms wide.

A wet metal sound emanated from behind Qrow, who immediately threw his arms out to stop Yang, and, glancing behind him, confirmed what he feared.

Ruby had dropped into a combat stance, her gloves gone and her claws out.

"Wer zur Hölle bist du?" Ruby demanded. A second set of footsteps sounded, and Taiyang came around the corner. He stopped dead upon seeing the scene in front of him, and Qrow could guess that this wasn't how he'd imagined things would go. To be fair to the man, Qrow hadn't expected things to go like this either, but he could at least understand that things wouldn't always go according to plan.

"Ruby?" Taiyang asked, slowly, as if he didn't entirely believe the girl in front of him was his daughter.

There was a faint burst of red from the odd cross-shaped scroll on her belt.

"Yes." Ruby spoke again, the odd scroll translating her words this time. "That would be me." She turned slowly from Yang, who's expression was a mixture of confusion and shock as she struggled against Qrow's arms, to look at him. "Who might you be?" Qrow didn't fail to notice that her stance had not changed.

"Taiyang. Taiyang Xiao Long." Taiyang introduced himself slowly. "Do you remember me?"

"No, why would I?" Ruby tilted her head in general confusion, but relaxed her stance slightly. "And who's she?" With a toss of her head she indicated Yang, who's expression hadn't changed, but she'd stopped struggling against Qrow's grip, having noticed the claws extending from Ruby's fingers.

"I'm your father, Ruby." Taiyang said, looking at Qrow in confusion. "That's Yang. She's your sister." Qrow shook his head, indicating that no, she didn't remember.

"Alright." Again, Ruby's surprisingly blasè response threw everyone else present for a loop. "What?" She asked, noticing the expressions she got in return. Taiyang opened his mouth to speak before Ruby cocked her head as if listening to someone else present before sighing. "As seeing as I don't remember any of you, and you knew very little of me, given my age when I disappeared, it seems the best course of action would be to take this is as if neither of us knew each other beforehand." She retracted her claws and put her hand out. "My name is Ruby Nakajima."

"Yang. Yang Xiao Long." Yang put her hand out to take Ruby's, having been let go of by Qrow.

…

…

"So, what's with the metal gloves?" Yang asked Ruby, curious. The two of them sat in the workshop of the Xiao Long house, Ruby at the main worktable, running some kind of diagnostic on her odd scroll, Yang next to her, arms resting on the back of her chair. They were alone, Qrow having taken Taiyang aside earlier to speak with him, after which Taiyang went to make dinner. Ruby had asked to be taken to a workshop of some sort, and Yang had obliged, showing her around the house first.

Truth be told, she was having a very hard time restraining her curiosity. Alongside other emotions.

The last time she'd seen Ruby, her little sister had been about three years old, Yang being a few days before her fifth birthday. The two of them had been playing in the woods right next to the house, which had been specifically cleared beforehand by Taiyang of Grimm or anything else harmful.

Yet after about an hour or so, Yang had notice that she hadn't seen Ruby for a while, and went looking. And hadn't found her after several minutes, so she'd gotten Taiyang, and the two had begun to look for her. After an hour with no sign of Ruby, Taiyang had called Qrow, and the search had begun in earnest. After several days with not even a trace, most of the searchers had called off their attempts, citing Grimm and the incredibly low chance of finding Ruby alive at that point as their reasons. But Qrow and Taiyang had kept searching, not stopping until winter's first snows came. Oh, they knew they had no chance at that point of finding Ruby alive. No, they'd been desperate for closure. Closure they'd never gotten, until, according to Qrow, an airship had crashed almost right in front of him, with Ruby aboard.

"Metal gloves?" Ruby asked in confusion, and Yang could hear the strange language she spoke faintly, but mainly overlaid by her own voice speaking Valian. She'd asked earlier how she was doing that, and had been told that it was a translator she had to rely on, as she didn't speak Valian. But Yang was distracting herself, she knew, and she forced herself to refocus on Ruby.

"I'm not- Oh. You mean my hands." _Wait, what?"_

"Your hands? Yang asked, confused.

"My hands are cybernetic replacements." Ruby informed her, turning in her chair to show Yang what she had though were gloves. Yang stopped, slightly stunned.

"When? What happened?" She asked, taking one of her sister's metal hands. Ruby looked at her, unamused, and withdrew her hand from Yang's, turning back to her 'Device'.

"I was blown up," She casually stated. "Sixty-eight percent of my body is cybernetic." She shrugged, continuing on, as Yang stared at her, horrified. _How can she be so casual about that?_

"Ask Qrow if you want the full story, I told him earlier. I don't really want to talk about it right now, if you don't mind." _Yeah, I get that. I wouldn't want to talk about it much, either._

"Soooo…" Yang trailed off, mentally searching for a topic. "Are you in training to be a Huntress or something? I mean, you've got those claws, after all."

"No. I am not in training anymore, and I am not a Huntress. I am a Knight of the Saint Church of Belka." That took several seconds for Yang to process, by which point the table was somehow covered in a mass of interconnected components, most of which looked like weapon system parts.

"What."

"Hmm?" Ruby glanced over at Yang's baffled face, before going back to the weapon parts. There was a red flash of light, and different parts now covered the table.

_I'm going to go back to that topic another time, I think._

"Alright. So, what's this, and how did it change like that?"

"My name is Rosenkreuz!" A cheery feminine voice rang out from the table. Yang nearly jumped back in confusion. _What?_ "Look in the corner!" Yang did so, and saw the metal cross from earlier, the red gem in the center flashing in time to the voice. _What._

"What are you?" Yang asked, thoroughly confused, and resolving to make sense of everything later.

"Rude." Ruby commented with a wry smile.

"I'm an Intelligent Device! I assist Meister Ruby!"

"Meister?"

"It's the Belkan word for 'master'." Rosenkreuz explained. "At any rate, my internal components are what is spread across the table. Meister Ruby is checking for damage to my systems." The 'Intelligent Device' informed her.

"Internal components? That's a lot to fit into such a small 'Device'." Yang commented, looking out over the table.

"Who said I was small?" Rosenkreuz responded, red gem still flashing with every word. "My full internal weight is approximately one hundred ninety-five kilograms of systems currently in use, not counting the Fortress System!"

"How the heck's that work?" Yang asked, baffled.

"Dimensional pocket technology." Ruby was the one to respond this time. "It's classified."

"Yeah… I don't really know what that means. The dimensional pocket thing, not the part about it being classified. That I get." Yang clarified.

Ruby chuffed in amusement, and shook her head. There was a red flash of light, and the weapon components disappeared, the ornate metal cross sitting the the center of the table. Ruby picked it - _I guess that's Rosenkreuz-_ up, and clipped it to her belt.

"That's that." Ruby noted with satisfaction. "No damage to Rosenkreuz, and I ran checks on my cybernetics on the way here. No damage to them, either." She grinned. "Knight's Armor is just that protective, I guess."

"Knight's Armor?"

"It's a protective spell." Ruby casually stated, then looked down at herself, standing up as she did so. "And I'm still in my Knight's Clothing. No need to wear it here, I think." _Spell? Wait, like-_

Red light sprang into existence around Ruby, flashing bright and then rapidly fading from existence.

Now she was dressed in a black longcoat, buttoned once at the mid-chest level, under which she wore a plain completely-black suit of some kind, with a propped collar. Rosenkreuz had also disappeared.

"The hell?" Yang asked, sliding herself and her chair backwards. "What the hell."

"Oh, this?" Ruby glanced over at her, gesturing to herself. "Generic Knight's uniform, just in black instead of white. And with a longcoat, of course. Not going anywhere without my longcoat." Ruby's right hand came up, reached into her shirt, and pulled a chain up and out of her top, revealing a tiny Rosenkreuz, which she then let fall to hang in front of her uniform.

"That's not what-. How did you do that?"

"Magic." Ruby casually replied, as if it were a completely normal topic. "Knight's Clothing is a Field-Type protective spell, of which Knight's Armor is a more protective variant. Though, actually, it's the other way around, as Knight's Armor was developed first."

"Magic." Yang repeated. "Magic. That's what that was?" _What the fuck._

"Correct. I am an accomplished Knight, with a Rank of Triple-A, Air specialty, and a Mana Capacity Rank of the same, though I doubt I'll ever advance higher in either. My Magic System is Ancient Belkan, and my combat style is mixed Shooting/Bombardment, though I'm no slouch in melee, thanks to Rosenkreuz and the Butcher's Nails, along with basic Strike Arts training, modified to accommodate my different Magic System, and some skill in the Kaiser Arts as an Inherited Ability." Ruby informed her.

"What."

"In basic, that means Meister Ruby excels in long-ranged combat, but isn't bad at close-range either!" Rosenkreuz spoke up from her tiny pendant-cross.

"... Alright. I'm just going to nod and say 'Okay'." Yang said. Ruby chuffed in annoyance, then sighed.

"I can demonstrate a few less-powerful spells later, if you would like- Actually, wait a minute." Ruby seemed to space out for a few seconds, then nodded, grinning. "Nevermind later, how would you like to see a few now?" She asked.

"Hell yes!" Yang, having gotten over her initial shock, was now bouncing in her seat at the possibility of seeing actual, honest-to-god magic.

Ruby grinned.

"Let's go, then. Outside."

With that, she turned and left the room, crossing to the back door just at the end of the hall, passing Taiyang and Qrow in the kitchen, deep in conversation.

"If you want to see a demonstration of magic, come with me."

Taiyang just looked at her, apparently baffled by the change in outfit, but Qrow grinned eagerly and followed Yang and Ruby out into the backyard. Yang heard her father sigh, and follow.

Ruby walked out to the center of the yard, and turned before asking a rather odd question.

"What's the air traffic around here like?" Everyone looked at her oddly, and Qrow answered after a few seconds.

"There really isn't much. About two flights from the mainland a day, morning and evening, unless there's some kind of emergency. " At this, Ruby nodded.

"Good." Ruby raised her hands to Rosenkreuz as the Device hung around her neck, then swept her left hand out to the side, as, with a burst of red light, the small pendant became a staff of some sort. A blood red triangle formed of bands of light formed beneath her feet, a circle at each point and one more in the center, the three circles at the points connected to the center circle by more bands of light. An ornate cross formed in the center circle, and odd writing Yang didn't even recognize flashed into being within the bands of light, and larger ones formed within the outer circles. "Ritterkleidung."

There was a flash of blood red light, and she was abruptly dressed in the outfit she'd worn earlier; a breastplate, gauntlets, and armored boots, along with some kind of robe-dress.

"This is my Knight's Clothing. You might recognize it." She stated offhandedly. "It is the primary defensive spell used by practitioners of the Belkan Magic Systems. But this is not all I have to show you. Flügel der Dunkelheit, gewähre mir Flug!" Ruby called, raising Rosenkreuz skyward, and a wave of red light sprang from her back, forming into a pair of large black-feathered wings. Yang stared, her eyes going wide.

Then, Ruby leapt into the air, and as her wings spread out, took off in a blood-red burst of energy, a trail of the same color behind her as she flew, darting out of sight behind the house, only to abruptly come back into view as she came around the other side, body parallel to the ground and ten feet off it.

_Woah. This… She wasn't lying. Magic's real. It's real!_

Ruby stopped abruptly in front of the three stunned individuals, tilting her orientation from horizontal to vertical again, but nobody missed the thin trails of red streaming from her wings, or the fact she was still hovering six feet off the ground.

"This is Sleipnir, an Ancient Belkan flight spell. It was taught to me by Lady Hayate Yagami, the Mistress of the Night Sky, and an extremely powerful mage-knight." Ruby smiled. "She taught me many of my spells." Then, Ruby's mouth twisted into a half-grin-half-wince. "Though, honestly, I think she mainly taught me because she was trying to get into my normal teacher, Knight Carim's habit, if you understand my meaning."

Yang threw back her head and laughed, Qrow burst out laughing, and Taiyang sighed, facepalming.

"There are rainbows straighter than Lady Yagami!" Rosenkreuz chimed in, causing Yang to practically roar with laughter, the volume of Qrow's guffaws to increase, and even Taiyang to chuckle, before he stopped suddenly.

"Wait, who said that?" Taiyang looked around, searching for someone else present, and seeing none.

"I did! My name is Rosenkreuz! I'm an Intelligent Device!" The Device's voice sounded even more cheerful than it had in the workshop.

"My weapon is the one speaking." Ruby informed him.

"Hello!" The gem at the odd top of the mechanical staff flashed as the Device spoke.

"What." Taiyang sounded confused, but Qrow just snorted, still chuckling lightly.

"I suspected something like that." He admitted, then frowned. "Wait, previous topic, habit, as in, a nun's outfit? Aren't nuns supposed to be chaste?"

A ringing came from with in the house, interrupting Ruby as she opened her mouth to answer.

"That was the timer I set." Taiyang noted. "Dinner's ready."

…

…

"So, you were about to say earlier?" Yang asked Ruby, as the younger girl finished her second plate of food. "About nuns being chaste?"

"And why were you taught by a nun?" Taiyang added his own question, leaning over his plate.

"Second question first; I was taught by a Knight, not a nun, though she dresses the part of a nun sometimes. I was taught by a Knight because I, myself, am a Knight of the Saint Church of Belka. In answer to the other question, nuns of the Saint Church don't have to be." Ruby told him with a grin. "Enforced celibacy would be weird considering the woman who's our Messiah figure was noted for having a… Taste for such pleasures-Oh, who am I kidding, she practically had a harem." Ruby noted.

"Harem means a bunch of women and- Wait, you mean-?" Yang asked, grinning.

"Yes, the Heiliger Kaiser had many female lovers. And a few men too, most notably a probable relationship with Hegemon Claus Ingvalt of Shutra, but most of her known or suspected lovers were female." Ruby told her, the expression on her face identical to the one on Yang's for a moment, before her face fell. "Though, can we discuss this another time?" She pushed the plate away from herself and stood up. "This discussion's just reminding me it'll be a long time before I see Cinque again." She turned, and began to leave in the direction of the guest room she'd been given, nodding at Taiyang as she did so. "Thank you for dinner, it was excellent."

"Uhhh, you're welcome, but, who's Cinque?" Taiyang asked as Ruby entered the hallway. She paused, and glanced back at the three still at the table.

"Cinque Nakajima. My wife."

_WAIT, WHAT!?_

…

…

_Too many, too many. Every time one fell another took its place. She'd been too slow, and they'd all failed._

_Rosenkreuz was destroyed, her Knight's Armor was failing, only the Butcher's Nails were left._

_She twisted to slash at-_

" _MEISTER RUBY! WAKE UP!"_

"AAAHHH!" Ruby screamed as she awoke suddenly, her Device's voice snapping her out of the nightmare.

The slash she'd aimed in the nightmare now wasn't a mere thought, and her arm came down, the Butcher's Nails shredding the nightstand next to her, before a series of noises in the hallway triggered her combat reflexes.

She leapt from the bed, darting forward to slam her claws through the wall and into whatever was in the other side when her Device spoke again.

" _You are safe. Relax, Meister. It's okay."_

The quiet voice of Rosenkreuz in her mind, while stopping her movements, was not enough to halt her momentum completely, and her claws embedded themselves in the wall, up to where her fingers started.

Taiyang exploded through the doorway, his fists raised.

He glanced about the room wildly as Ruby began crying, the day's stress, the hijacking, the horrific events she'd been grasping at anything to stave off caught up with her all at once.

She slumped to the ground, her claws still in the wall, leaving long gashes down the wall as she slid downwards.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She whispered, speaking Midchildan for the first time since the crash.

"Ruby?" Taiyang whispered, before saying something in his strange language. He knelt down next to her, inadvertently triggering her again.

"Get away from me!" She screamed at him, and tore her left hand, the one closer to him, free from the wall, slashing it at him.

Her reach wasn't far enough, but it got the message across. Taiyang put his hands up, and slowly backed away. More footsteps raced up the hallway, and another pair of voices sounded. She couldn't understand the words spoken, and couldn't concentrate enough to pick up on the tones.

" _Meister, please, just calm down. You're safe, you're safe. It's all going to be fine."_ Rosenkreuz told her. Ruby half listened to her Device, but something else caught one of the pieces of her attention.

A small, cold, wet nose pressed against her bare stomach. She glanced down through tear-filled eyes, the tiny, detached part of herself noting that she was only wearing panties and becoming embarrassed. And as she looked down further, she came eye-to-eye with a small, grey corgi.

"Arf." The tiny canine barked softly, and snuggled into her stomach, heedless to the tears falling onto his fur.

Ruby retracted the Butcher's Nails, and slowly moved her left hand to pet the corgi, needing the affection of something small and cute, something not remotely threatening.

After several minutes of gentle corgi-petting, Ruby had calmed down enough to slowly stand, picking up the small canine as she did so. She slowly made her way to the bed, and sat down on the edge, pulling her longcoat over her shoulders and returning to petting the small fuzzy animal and trying very hard to just not think of anything for a while.

Sometime after she sat down, she registered the voices in the hallway leaving, and noted that the door had been closed at some point.

This suited her quite well.

" _You ought to try and sleep again, Meister."_

" _I don't think I'll be able to, after that…"_

" _Then I'll stay awake with you. So, what do you want to talk about? Or do you want to watch a movie or TV show?"_

Ruby glanced over at her Device.

" _Let's… I need to learn Valian, so let's start with that."_

" _Okay! So, first off…"_

…

…

{End, Prologue Part 1}


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, and welcome back to Revenant!  
> I really do hope everyone's enjoyed this so far! (I've sure enjoyed writing it!)  
> One thing I'd like to note: The chapters are probably going to be much shorter from here on out; I'm aiming for about 3000 words at minimum, with no real maximum. That said, with only a handful of exceptions, I'm going to try and keep chapters under 10000 words.  
> Without me rambling further,  
> Please Enjoy!

"Schwarzefaust."

The attack came too fast for Yang to dodge, and as she twisted in an attempt to anyway, a fist shrouded in black slammed into her side and sent her sprawling, her Aura dropping down into the red on her scroll, which buzzed and beeped at her to let her know she was, under tournament rules, no longer capable of fighting.

"I thought you said you're not a melee specialist." She complained, from her position on the ground, glaring up at the faintly-smiling face of Ruby, who hovered about a foot off the ground, red trailing from the large black wings extending from her back.

"I am not. That was one of my handful of close-range spells, in fact, my only Enhanced-Attack-Type spell beyond parts of the Strike and Kaiser Arts, which I am honestly not too proficient in. Schließlich habe ich nur mein Können in den Kaiser-Künsten geerbt." Ruby told her in Valian first, the other girl's accent incredibly thick, the final sentence still in Belkan, before she changed her orientation to offer Yang a hand up from the ground. She took it, still glaring at the other girl. "Incidentally, I think I have figured out why I keep winning, and it has very little to do with my magic."

_ Right, like I believe that. You've been saying for weeks how it's not your magic that lets you win. _ Yang thought with annoyance.

It had been about six weeks since Ruby had shown up that one evening with Drunkle Qrow, and it had taken less than a day for her to begin sparring with Yang and Taiyang. She didn't fight like anyone else Yang had ever fought before, and not just for the fact she fought with her spells.

"And what would that reason be?" Taiyang spoke up from his position on the porch, leaning against one of the supporting posts.

"Your style is designed to get into an opponent's face and trade blow-for-blow. Es ist sehr von Angesicht zu Angesicht. And it is made to fight opponents with similar styles. I've noticed you have difficulty adapting to other opponents. Andere Kampfstile geben dir Ärger. My own style is primarily based around staying out of an opponent's reach. Ich bin immerhin ein besserer Fernkämpfer. The fact I am primarily using spells against you just makes things go quicker, if I had a gun instead, the outcome would not really change. It would just take longer." Ruby told Yang and Taiyang, still switching to Belkan every so often.

"She's not wrong." Taiyang noted. "I had a lot of problems with opponents who fought like that. Heck, I still do, in the rare occasions I fight."

Yang just gave a groan of annoyance in response.

"I don't want a lecture right now."

"You are not getting one. I do not have much further to say on the subject, as my knowledge of close-quarters fighting is limited, without resorting to Rosenkreuz's various modes, or the Butcher's Nails." Ruby told her, before turning to Taiyang. "I think that is enough for today, es wird spät. Unless you wish to spar as well?"

"Nah, I'll pass." Taiyang responded with a grin. "Came out here to let you two know, Qrow's heading out tomorrow morning, and he's taking everyone out for a night on the town before he leaves again."

"Yeah!" Yang cheered. "Qrow always brings us somewhere fun, usually to some club or something like that." She explained to Ruby, who had tilted her head at Yang's reaction.

"Ah. I see." Ruby smiled faintly again. "I would like that, I have not seen much of this world."

"Well, you'll need to stop saying 'this world'. Just say you're not from Vale." Yang advised. Ruby snorted at her.

"Ich bin nicht dumm. I understand operational security. You only know because it is necessary for you to know." She pointed out.

"True." Yang conceded. The discussion had been had before, after all. She turned to her father. "So, when are we going?"

The door behind Taiyang opened as if on cue, and Qrow stepped out.

"Soon as everyone's ready." Yang's uncle told her, grinning. "You coming too, Ruby?"

"Ja- yes." Ruby responded in Belkan first, then seemed to catch herself and used Valian.

_ Why weren't you doing that earlier? _ Yang wondered, then mentally shrugged it off. Six weeks was an incredibly short time to become nearly fluent in a language, even if, according to Ruby, it was similar to another one she knew.

"Well, unless anyone has anything they really need to do, we can leave as soon as you want."

"Think we both ought to take showers first." Yang said with a glance at Ruby. "We've been sparring for a while now."

"And I could use the time to check on my cybernetics." Ruby agreed.

"So, leave in… Half an hour, forty-five minutes?"

"Sounds fine to me."

"Ja."

…

…

"A nightclub?" Ruby raised an eyebrow as she looked at the building in front of the three of them, Taiyang having elected to stay home, having mumbled something about having to finish grading assignments before class tomorrow. "This is unexpected." The Knight noted in Belkan, before switching back to Valian. It confused the others, she knew, but using the first of her two native languages as her main one was a hard habit to break. "I do not mind, but I do wonder why." This she said with a glance at Qrow.

The Guardian Beast shrugged.

"I've heard some good things about Junior's. Not so many about the man himself, but quite a bit about the place, figured we could see for ourselves."

"You ever been to a nightclub before?" Yang asked as Qrow finished.

"A few times." Ruby responded. "With my unit during Cross-Training." She smiled at the memories, most of them amusing.

"Ah, alright." Yang nodded, then grinned. "Any stories to share?" She asked, as Qrow pushed open the door.

"A few. Just not right now." Ruby responded as she walked in, Yang right behind her.

It wasn't a bad club, from the appearance. A bar took up most of one side, with a series of tables and booths on the other. A decently-sized dance floor was located in a depression in the floor, and shone with light.

The place was also quite full; only a single table hadn't been taken, and the dance floor was nearly crowded.

"Busy tonight." Yang commented. "Catch you in a bit!" She told Ruby and Qrow over her shoulder as she immediately headed straight for the dance floor.

Ruby glanced at Qrow as he ambled towards the bar, and made her way over as well.

"You're young, go have some fun." Qrow told her at the two reached the bar and he noticed she was following him. "Don't just hang around me and drink with this old man."

"Not intending to." She told him with a grin. "Just getting something to drink myself."

"You're a bit young for alcohol." The bartender, a rather massive man in a suit, noted as he approached the two, apparently catching Ruby's second sentence. "What'll you have?" He asked Qrow.

"Whiskey. Whatever's the best quality." The Guardian Beast responded as he slouched onto one of the stools.

"Alright. And you, little miss?" The man nodded at Ruby, who glanced at the menu above the bar.

_ I'm glad he chose to bring us out now, rather than earlier in my stay. I can actually read Valian now. _

"An Atlas Mountainside, minus the liquor, please." She requested, and the man nodded again, turning to the bar behind him. Qrow's drink came in only a few seconds, and he immediately downed half the small glass.

Ruby just shook her head at him, and took the glass the bartender slid across the bar, setting off in the direction of the unoccupied table in the corner.

She pulled her scroll out as she slid into the seat on front of the wall, connecting to the club's WiFi.

_ "So, where were we?" _ She asked Rosenkreuz, tapping away on the scroll to pull up a news site to look through as she spoke with her Device.

_ "We were talking about you potentially attending Beacon Academy, Meister! It seems Knight Ozpin would like you to attend his school, for however long we remain on Remnant." _

_ "Ah, right. So, where precisely were we in the discussion? Nevermind, I remember." _

…

…

_ Crowded, today. _ Blake Belladonna noted as she entered Junior's bar and nightclub.

Every table had someone at it, even the one way in the back where she usually sat. If it weren't for the fact she'd been seen walking in, she'd have turned and walked out, but doing so now would just draw attention, and her paranoia wouldn't allow her to do that, not with the fact she was being followed.

Instead, she quietly ordered a soda, nearly bumping into some drunk in grey with a tattered red cape, and made her way over to the back table, the least crowded part of the bar, with the only occupant bring a girl dressed in black, doing something on her scroll.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" She asked the girl, her voice just loud enough to be heard over the noise of the music and other patrons. Part of her hoped she'd say no, Blake didn't trust strangers at all, and would usually prefer standing in a corner to sitting with someone she didn't know. The other part of her hoped the girl would say yes, as she had been in her feet all day and wanted at least a few minutes of rest. Besides, a girl sitting down was harder to see than a girl standing, and if she wasn't alone whoever was following her might not give her a second glance, provided they followed her into Junior's, anyway.

"Nein." The girl said, then shook her head. "No. Go ahead." Her accent Blake couldn't place, but it was tremendously thick, and she found herself confused at the girl's first utterance.

Still, she took the across seat, getting a closer look at the girl. Something about her made Blake curious.

Her silver eyes were the first things the cat faunus noticed, and not just for their very unusual color. There was a dullness to them, as if the girl had seen too much to continue undamaged, yet there was also undeniably a spark in her eyes as well; an adamant refusal to give in to whatever had caused the horrors the girl had seen.

The girl's physical appearance was a bit less captivating, but Blake didn't deny she looked cute, to an extent. Her hair was down to her waist, black for the most part, fading into red at the tips, a contrast to her pale skin. Her thin facial features made her look delicate, but there was a strength to her that made Blake doubt how delicate she really was.

Her outfit, however, was as simple as it was monochromatic. She wore a simple black turtleneck underneath a black longcoat, along with black gloves.

_ Why gloves indoors? _ Blake wondered, though she didn't bother asking aloud. The girl, she noticed, was studying her back.

"Goldene augen…" The girl whispered, before shaking her head and speaking louder. "You are scared of something. Was fürchtest du-What are you afraid of?" The girl asked something first in a language Blake couldn't identify, before asking a question in Valian.

"I'm sorry?" She stiffened. "What do you mean?"

"That you are afraid is obvious. It shows in both your voice and demeanor. You entered scared and still are. What is it you fear?" The girl slid her scroll closed before putting it away, and took a sip of her drink, waiting for Blake's answer.

She didn't answer, simply gazing at her in distrust. The girl let out a small sigh.

"You do not trust me. Das ist akzeptabel. I understand."

The girl's eyes suddenly went to the door.

"Is that who you were afraid of?"

Blake didn't take the bait, and didn't turn around.

"Two men, black suits. Grey hats. Looking around."

Blake stiffened again, one hand going to her side, where a handgun was concealed. She had Gambol Shroud hidden under her coat, but with its current position, drawing it would be both awkward, and noticeable.

The other girl seemed to notice, and her hands disappeared to under the table.

There was several seconds of silence, as Blake listened for any sign her pursuers had noticed her, while the girl kept watching the door.

Footsteps sounded behind her, and as Blake moved to draw her gun, a gruff voice sounded behind her, not one of her pursuers. She stopped, gun not yet clear of her jacket.

"Hey, kid." An older man plopped into one of the two remaining chairs, the one on Blake's right. It was the drunk from the bar, the scent of alcohol clinging to him, making Blake wrinkle her nose in distaste. Sometimes, a faunus's enhanced senses were an annoyance.

"Wacher-Biest." The other girl greeted him. "I thought you would still be getting drunk. Did you not tell me not to just drink and 'hang around' with you?" Her eyes had not left the door, and she seemed to not note Blake's tension, which was still rising, though the odd apparent title confused her slightly.

"Yeah, well, when you set my scroll off right after those two-" The man jerked a shoulder towards the doorway, his words slurred a bit, "-Walked in, I figure I should come see what's up." He glanced at the girl, apparently saw something, and his hand reached back to under his cape, where Blake saw the hilt of a blade.

_ A Huntsman? _

"What's going on, kid?" His voice now was perfectly sober, and had a dangerous edge to it. He turned to look at Blake. "Does it have to do with her?" His red eyes bored into Blake, mild hostility evident in the gaze of a veteran huntsman.

"Yes, but not in the way you're thinking." The girl told him. "She came in looking scared, and when I brought them up, Sie spannte sich an, als würde sie kämpfen."

The man looked at her, and she seemed to realize she'd slipped into another language again.

"She tensed up as if she were about to fight."

"And that was severe enough for you to extend your claws?"  _ Claws? She's a faunus, too? _

"If a threat were presented where I could not use my weapon, such as in this space, yes. I do know how to use them non-lethally." The girl assured him, her eyes still locked onto the door. "They're leaving."

Blake slowly turned, keeping her gun in hand. Sure enough, her two pursuers were exiting the club, obvious in their black suits and grey hats.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sorry about that." She said, holstering her pistol and putting both hands on the table, in a placating gesture.

The huntsman released his grip on his weapon, and put both of his hands on the table as well. There was a few seconds of silence as the girl's hands moved under the table.

"So, care to tell us what that was about?" He asked, as the girl placed both of her hands on the table, black gloves having apparently been removed and replaced.

"Just… Something I did coming uncomfortably close to catching up with me." Blake responded, uneasily. The man was a Huntsman, telling him everything would be monumentally stupid.

"That's real specific." The huntsman snorted, before catching the girl looking at him in disapproval. "What?"

The girl sighed and shook her head.

"Drücken Sie nicht. Jeder hat seine Gründe für die Geheimhaltung." The girl told him, before shaking her head again and speaking in Valian. "Do not push. Everyone has their reasons for secrecy. Given my own circumstances, can we fault her for keeping things concealed, when we keep so much hidden ourselves?"  _ What does she mean by that? _ Blake wondered.

The man sighed himself, shaking his head.

"Not really." He sighed again, shook his head, and stood up. "I'm headin' back to the bar. Text me again if you need me."

"What time are we leaving?" The girl asked as he began to leave.

"An hour or two." Came the response over his shoulder.

The girl nodded as she returned her gaze to Blake.

"Thank you." Blake tilted her head in gratitude. "I don't like people pushing into my affairs too deeply. Thank you for respecting my privacy."

"No problem." The girl responded. "I am curious also, but I do not think my curiosity outweighs your privacy. And I did notice the White Fang tattoo on the back of one's wrist. I can draw some of my own conclusions."

Blake grimaced. The girl was a bit more perceptive than she hoped.

"My one question is this; Why do you hide your ears with a bow?"

Blake's thought processes ground to a halt.  _ She knows, she saw through it, how did she do that- _

"Your bow flattened when I mentioned the men, rose again once they left."  _ Oh. That's how. _

"Please, don't-"

"Tell anyone?" The girl flashed a grin. "We all have our secrets to keep." A scroll buzzed as she spoke, and she drew it from her coat, flipping open the screen as she did so. Blake made to leave, as the girl answered a call.

"Ritter Ozpin." She greeted the person on the other end of the call, paused a few seconds, and spoke again in the odd language she had spoken earlier. "Ich habe meine Antwort für dich. Ich habe beschlossen, dass ich Ihr Angebot annehmen und Ihre Akademie besuchen werde."

She stopped, listened again, and responded again.

"Dann werde ich dich in sechs Wochen sehen. Gute Nacht." She took the scroll away from her ear, ending the call. "My apologies, Ozpin of Beacon called."

"You know Professor Ozpin?" Blake sat back down. "And what was that language?"  _ Just who is this girl? _

"Yes, I do, and the language was…" She hesitated. "Actually, don't worry about it. It is a dead language anyway. As for how I know Ozpin, that drunkard," she inclined her head at the bar, more precisely, the red-caped huntsman still drinking, "Is a close friend of his, and since I have came to Vale, I have been staying with him. I have met Ozpin in his company a few times."

"Since you came to Vale?"

"I am not a native, if you have not noticed." The girl said with a small grin, before turning quite serious. "I would prefer to not dwell on what lead me here, if you do not mind."  _ I can understand that. _

"Can I ask what that was about?" Blake queried her, changing the subject a bit.

"You just did." The girl noted, before continuing. "The call was about my admission to Beacon. I will be attending the academy when the school year begins in six weeks."

"So why a call from the headmaster himself?"

"I will be the youngest student on record at the Academy. Hence the call."  _ Youngest student on record? _

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I will be the youngest student to ever attend Beacon Academy."

"Ah." Blake nodded in understanding. "Fifteen?"

"Correct. I-" The girl's scroll rang again, and she glanced down at it, before grinning slightly.

"I need to take this. Goodbye." She said, standing.

"Goodbye." Blake bid her farewell, and pulled her own scroll out, setting it on the table in front of her.

There was a single unread message in her inbox. She tapped on it, and read through it while downing her soda, which was now flat.

Blake smiled as she set down the empty glass.

_ See you in six weeks. _ She thought, looking down at her letter of acceptance into Beacon Academy.

…

…

{End, Prologue Part 2}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please let me know how you think this was!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Again, everyone!  
> Sorry it's been a bit!  
> Without further ado,  
> Enjoy!

"Wow. Welcome to Beacon." Yang said from beside Ruby, stepping off the airship and looking around at the massive campus of Beacon Academy.

"It is quite impressive." Ruby agreed, glancing about, as she hadn't been paying much attention to the place when Qrow had brought her here to meet Knight Ozpin. The scale of the campus wasn't quite up the Grand Cathedral and its surroundings, where she had been raised, but as far as schools went, the only larger ones she knew of were the Academies for the Air Armaments Service and Dimensional Navy, though the largest campus of the University of the Arts and Sciences in Cranagan on Midchilda came close.

"So, we're here. Now what?" Ruby asked Yang, glancing over at the blonde brawler as the two walked out into the middle of a small plaza, Ruby adjusting her gloves slightly.

"Uhhh…" Yang put her hands up in an 'I don't know' gesture. "Not a clue, but I do see a few of my friends from Signal Academy…" She glanced at Ruby meaningfully.

"Go on, then." Ruby told her, with a small grin. "I will be fine, we will meet up later. Go with your friends." She lightly pushed Yang's shoulder, who grinned in return and jogged to catch up with a small group of other students, waving and shouting a few names as she did so.

" _So, according to today's schedule, we've got some time to kill before we have to report to the auditorium. Any ideas?"_ Ruby asked her Device as she began to turn around, noting the luggage cart behind her and avoiding it. The unfamiliar weight in the small of her back shifted slightly, and she made a mental note to reset the magnetic clamps holding Rosenkreuz, in her new Crescent configuration.

" _Well, Master, we could-"_

"Be careful!" A shrill voice shouted at her, and Ruby turned towards the direction of the voice.

A pale girl in a dress stood behind her, arms crossed, glaring at her. "You should watch where you're going!" She demanded of the Knight, her voice haughty.

"My apologies." Ruby responded, in the interests of not starting a conflict with other students at Knight Ozpin's school. As she spoke, she completed her turn and spotted both a familiar figure and a nice garden path where she would most likely not be bothered.

_Well, hello again. I didn't expect to see you here._

"Do you even know what you nearly knocked over!?" The pale girl practically yelled from behind Ruby.

"Dust, I presume, given the labels." She said over her shoulder as she began to walk away. "I am not as blind or clumsy as one may think."  _And you are supremely annoying._

"Don't you walk away from me!" Fast footsteps sounded behind her, and Ruby spun, her combat reflexes acting, her left hand going to Rosenkreuz, her right coming up in front of her in a blocking position.

The pale girl stopped dead, looking at Ruby with confusion.

"My apologies." Ruby said with a small bow, letting her arms drop back down to her sides, leaving Rosenkreuz where she was. "I was acting on reflex."

The pale girl just looked at her for a few seconds, a mix of emotions visible on her face before her expression become blank, ice-blue eyes locked on her own.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it." With that, she turned and walked back to the luggage cart. Ruby caught her muttering under her breath as she did so.

"Just like Winter…"

" _Huh. I didn't think that would be a reaction I'd get from her. I wonder who 'Winter' is. Or if who is the proper question."_

" _I didn't either, and I don't know."_

Ruby shrugged slightly and turned around, to meet a familiar golden-eyed gaze, this time evidencing confusion.

"I can not say I expected to see you here. You did not mention that you also would be attending Beacon Academy." She said to the cat faunus she'd meet six weeks earlier.

"I didn't get my acceptance letter until later." Came the offhand response, as the faunus girl slowly lowered the book to reveal her face.

Ruby inclined her head in acknowledgement at this.

"Fair enough." With that, both fell silent, an uncomfortable silence developing. Finally, after a few minutes of the two standing around awkwardly, she sighed softly, and put her hand out.

"Ruby Nakajima."

The faunus girl looked at her for a few seconds, then slowly took the offered handshake.

"Blake Belladonna."

Ruby nodded again at the girl as they both allowed the handshake to break.

"It is nice to see you again, Frau Belladonna."

Blake looked at her with slight confusion, but before she could speak, a public address system activated, and a woman's voice spoke over it.

"All incoming students are requested to report to the auditorium. Again, all incoming students are requested to report to the auditorium."

"Apparently, we have someplace to be." Ruby noted.

…

…

"Ruby! I saved you a spot!" Yang called across the auditorium as she spotted the other girl entering the auditorium, accompanied by a rather handsome girl with dark hair and a bow on her head.

Ruby told the girl something, who nodded and walked off, while Ruby made her way over to Yang.

"Already making friends?" The blonde brawler asked her sister, grinning. "That's good! It's about time you started making a few."

"Acquaintances, more like." Ruby gave her a blank look. "It is a bit too early for that." Then, at the edge of Yang's hearing, she whispered something, very softly. Yang could barely make out the words, though she could tell it was in Belkan. "Ich will keine Freunde finden, weil ich Angst habe, dass ich sie verlieren werde."

"What?" Yang looked at her, blankly.

"Do not worry about it." Ruby told her, then, glancing at the stage, gestured towards it. "Ritter Ozpin is about to speak."

_Why do you always call Professor Ozpin, Ritter Ozpin? And what does Ritter mean, anyway?_

"I'll... keep this brief." Ozpin's voice broke into her thoughts, and she turned to look up at the stage, where Ozpin stood in front of a microphone. "You have traveled here today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose, direction."

At this statement from the Headmaster, the students began to whisper among themselves. Yang glanced sideways for a brief moment, and noticed that Ruby was muttering to herself in Belkan.

Yang turned her head back to the stage as Ozpin continued.

"You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step."

With that, the Headmaster of Beacon turned, and walked away, the blonde woman next to him taking his place at the microphone.

"You will gather in the ballroom tonight; tomorrow, your initiation begins. Be ready. You are dismissed." She, too, turned and walked off, following Ozpin out of the room.

Yang glanced back over at her sister, who hadn't stopped muttering, though after a few seconds she did, and began to walk off, in the direction Ozpin had left in, gently pushing her way through the crowd. Yang followed, curious.

"Where are you going?" She asked as she slipped between two groups of talking students.

"To speak to Ritter Ozpin." Came the response, delivered quiet enough it was hard enough to hear her.

"Why?"

"There are things I wish to discuss. Not for prying ears." She added, gesturing around.

"Can it wait?" Yang asked her. "You'll just stick out more."

Ruby stopped for a moment, then nodded.

"Yes. I will discuss things with him tomorrow, after initiation." She turned to Yang. "Any ideas on what we are supposed to do now?"

"Well…"

…

…

"It's like a big slumber party!" Yang slid onto her impromptu bed, which sat next to Ruby's, trying to get a reaction out of the Knight, who simply looked up from her scroll with a completely blank expression.

Both of the girls had dressed in nightclothes, Yang in a tank top and shorts, while Ruby was in a long sleeve turtleneck and sweatpants, with socks and gloves on, apparently to hide any trace of her cybernetics.

"I honestly have noted several parallels to when the Knights and TSAB personnel all end up sleeping in a single group while on exercise. Though, I have never attended a 'slumber party' myself, and this would not notice the similarities." She noted.

"You've never had a slumber party?" Yang asked, curious.  _That might explain why she chose the corner of the room. No one else's over here, except that girl with the bow from earlier._

Ruby's hand made its way to Rosenkreuz, and there was a very faint flash of red light, after which she lowered her hand to her lap again.

"Silencing spell active, now I can speak freely. To answer your question, no. I lived in an orphanage for the first several years, then, when I began training, I was moved into what was essentially a mix between a church and a barracks. After I completed training, I was posted onboard the Archon almost immediately. I have always lived in communal spaces, there was never any point." Ruby told her. "The only times I have ever lived anywhere else were the handful of times I stayed with the Nakajima family before I ended up here." She explained, looking morose near the end of the sentence.

 _Right. It'll be a long time before she sees her family again_.

"I didn't know that." Yang admitted. "So, what was it like?" She asked, propping her head up on one of her hands.

"Do you mean living in an orphanage or living in a church barracks?"

"Church barracks." The blonde brawler clarified. "I've never been heard of church barracks before."

"Because your churches do not maintain armed forces." Ruby set her scroll down as she spoke. "It is not too dissimilar to how the Priesthood lives, honestly. We commonly live four to a room, with small storage spaces for each and an attached bathroom. In the accommodations at the Grand Cathedral on Midchilda where I lived, there were lounges every floor, with small kitchens as well alongside the main dining hall on the ground floor. A small library was located on the second floor, and the Grand Cathedral's main library was not too far away. There was a gym in an adjacent building, which saw quite a bit of use. The outdoor training fields also were located immediately to the east, and there were a variety of classrooms in the main building. After all, one must know more than combat to be a proper Knight." She smiled at that. "Our instructors lived with us, on the top floors of the residential building."

"Sounds like a nice place." Yang commented.

"It is. There is far, far more there, as well. The Grand Cathedral's main hall is probably the size of this building, and the surrounding buildings, a campus of a sort itself, is significantly larger than Beacon's. And it is easy to get to the nearest city, the trams run every twenty minutes, if walking or flying for a few minutes is not to your liking." Ruby still was smiling as she reminisced about her home.

_I still find the similarities in timekeeping to be weird._

"You like it there." Yang stated. "You miss your home?"

"Yes, I do. But I miss the people more." Ruby's small smile left her face, and her gaze slid down. "I want to see Cinque again. I want to see everyone again, but I miss my wife the most." She admitted.

"What's she like?" Yang asked. Ruby never had told her much about her other family or her wife.

She still wasn't entirely used to or comfortable with the idea that Ruby had married already, but she knew that it was incredibly important to the Knight, and didn't say any of her thoughts on the subject out loud. Taiyang and Qrow both had voiced their opinions, resulting in an argument that had ended with Ruby challenging them to a duel for her and her wife's honor. Taiyang had declined, but Qrow had taken her up on it, and promptly been beaten into the ground with spells. Magic was a bit overpowering when it came to duels, especially when one was unprepared for such.

"'Lady of war' is the first phrase that comes to mind. She is… She is very stoic around others, but towards her family she just… Opens up in a way you would never think she could. She seems even emotionless sometimes, but her smile… Radiant, I think, is the best description. She is very gentle, too, for a soldier. " Ruby gave a sad smile. "She is also very beautiful. At least, I think so. I am not good at describing others. You… Will have to meet her." She looked down further, then up again, and Yang could see something in her eyes she couldn't quite identify. "You will meet her." The Knight promised. "Though, I can say, like all of the Nakajimas and Scaglietti's daughters, she is very dangerous if you are fighting her." This came with a grin. "We are a dangerous family."  _So they're like a family of Hunters or something? Probably all Knights or Military._

"So, were you a Nakajima first, or did you marry into them?" Yang asked, curious.

"Cinque was adopted into the Nakajima family first, then I married her. I had no family name before that." Ruby told her. "None of us from the orphanage did, though we all had a father, Maximilian Leonhardt."

"Sounds… Very manly." Yang responded, grinning at the sheer over-the-top machoness of the name.  _Though, I think this should be kept a secret from dad… He'd probably not take it well that Ruby calls someone else her father..._

"Oh, he is." The Knight agreed with Yang's previous statement. "He is two-hundred nineteen centimeters- Sorry, seven feet two inches tall, wears armor as casual clothing, his Device's main form is a greatsword as large as he is, and his familiars are a pair of Midchildan wolves named Romula and Remus." She grinned again. "He both runs the orphanage at the Grand Cathedral, and trains the Knights through our first few years. Father Maximilian is the model of what a Knight of the Saint Church should be."

"Very manly, like I said. He have anything about him that isn't, uh, a masculine stereotype?"

"Well, he has got a two-year degree in landscaping, with an emphasis on flower arrangement. The plaque for it hangs on the wall of his office, and he routinely competes in baking competitions. And usually wins." Ruby added. "Blame him for my love of cookies."

"What about the rest of your family? The Nakajimas?" Yang asked next, switching topics. Ruby seemed to be in a talkative mood for once, and she wanted to learn as much as she could.

Ruby glanced off to Yang's side for a moment, then spoke in a low voice. "We are beginning to be noticed. I will dismiss the spell, do not speak of magic or other abnormal topics."

There was a brief odd feeling, as if the rest of the world had suddenly gotten louder, before Ruby spoke again.

"You asked after the Nakajimas? Well, I will tell you this, we are an odd family." The Knight admitted. "For one thing, only Genya, the father, is not a cyborg. The rest of us all are, and I have the least amount of cybernetics."  _A family of cyborgs?_ "We are also a rather large family. There is Genya, the father, I have already noted he is the only non-cyborg. He is a very kind man, always willing to help in whatever way he can. I am proud to call him 'father', if only as an in-law." Yang mentally winced at that.  _I'm very glad dad isn't here for this. That might crush him. Or not, given she specifically noted he's her father-in-law._ She refocused on Ruby.

"Then there is Ginga, the eldest sister. I do not know her well." The younger girl admitted. "There is Subaru, who I know a bit better. She is… Unique. In many ways. She is also the one who noticed that Cinque and I were… Interested in each other, and encouraged us to… I think the phrase is 'get together'?" Ruby glanced off into space and shrugged. "Irrelevant, you understand my meaning. Another of us is Nove. She is aggressive and violent, but is also solid and dependable when it is required of her. And is significantly nicer towards her family. She was, last I heard, teaching Lady Vivio martial arts."  _Who's Lady Vivio?_ Yang wondered.  _Some Church priestess or something? Or is there a Nobility system on Midchilda? Come to think of it, she never has said anything about things like that._ Yang mentally shook her head, Ruby was still talking.

"There is also Deci, though she is even colder than Cinque to those she does not know, she can still 'warm up' I think the phrase is, to some others, though she is not as quiet as Cinque. I do not know her very well, either." The Knight admitted. "The last sister in the Nakajima family is Wendi. Of all my siblings, she is, without a doubt, the most talkative and the most energetic. You would never mistake her for someone else." Ruby said this with a grin.

"That is a large family. Anyone else? No mom or brothers?" Yang asked.

"No brothers. And as for a mother…" Ruby trailed off for a moment. "Quint died ten years ago. I never knew her, all I know is from her personnel file and the stories told to me from others."

"Oh." Yang couldn't really think of anything else to say, and at that point, the lights went out. Save for moonlight coming from the large windows several feet up, the only light was from a set of candles someone had lit. The girl next to them looked vaguely familiar, but Yang didn't care enough to think too much on where she'd seen her before.

"Well, I think that was a sign we should go to bed." The blonde brawler noted, letting her arm slip from supporting her head. "'Night."

"I will pray first. But, goodnight, Yang."

 _Right, Church Knight. She does tend to pray a lot._  She reflected.

In the dark, Yang could vaguely make out Ruby shifting to a kneeling position, bowing her head and clasping her hands together in front of her, as she began to murmur in Belkan.

…

…

{End, Chapter 1}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been asked for updates on all my other fics, so here it is!  
> A Rose's Thorns: Undergoing a re-write. Don't worry, the plot will stay the same except for patched Plot Holes. i'll be replacing the chapters with the re-written ones when they are complete. (Which may be a while, sorry!)  
> Death Has Silver Eyes: The same as ART, though I will be working on this after Thorns, so it'll be a while yet.  
> Victory Is In A Simple Soul: On hiatus until Revenant has reached the end of Volume 1.
> 
> As always, please let me know how you think this was!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!  
> Nothing really to say right now, so without further ado,  
> Enjoy!

"So, you seem awfully chipper this morning." Yang noted from the bench she was sitting on. She and Ruby were within the locker room of Beacon Academy, retrieving their gear for Initiation, though in practice, only Yang had anything to get, as Ruby would be using Rosenkreuz as her weapon, and had 'dressed' in her Knight's Clothing, albeit with Sleipnir suppressed, instead of 'normal' combat gear.

"Chipper?" She asked, unfamiliar with the word.

"Active, happy. You're a lot happier than you normally seem to be." There was click as the blonde brawler finished loading her gauntlets.

"Ah." The Knight nodded. "I admit to looking forward to this. I wish to test myself on the 'Grimm', and to test Rosenkreuz's Crescent configuration."  _The modifications made should prove… Interesting to test._

"And what about teams?" Yang asked.

Ruby froze for a moment, then turned away.  _A complication, honestly._

"I… Have not given much thought to that. I am… Uninterested in working in a team. I am capable of doing so easily, I have in the past, but I do not wish to here."  _I don't plan on staying too long, after all. Sooner or later, a TSAB Vessel will arrive to investigate the Archon, and retrieve its remains. And I plan on leaving with them._

"Why not?" Yang asked her, then seemed to have a moment of realization, dropping her voice down to a whisper. "You don't plan on staying, do you?" Ruby glanced back, and felt slightly guilty over the fact that the blonde brawler looked like a kicked puppy.

The Knight didn't answer back, instead turning to her assigned locker, closing it. She hadn't actually retrieved anything from it, instead using the locker as a convenient place to transform Rosenkreuz. She turned back right as the other girl began to speak.

"Ruby-"Yang started to speak again, though as Ruby turned back to her, another student interrupted her by walked between the two.

"Ridiculous! There's no way I put my gear in locker six-three-six yesterday, I would've remembered having to count that high! Why does this have to happen today?" He complained, contemplating his scroll as he continued walking down the locker room towards the higher-numbered lockers.

"Ruby-" Yang tried again once he had passed, only to be interrupted again, this time by Ruby.

"Not here. Too many prying ears." The Knight told her, tossing her head to the side, indicating the other students. "We will talk another time, just not here and now. That conversation will be had."

The blonde brawler took a few seconds to process that, before nodding slowly.

"Okay." With that, she began a final check of her gauntlets, and Ruby mentally queried Rosenkreuz.

" _Any success on negating or mitigating Remnant's AMF?"_

" _I've had some, Meister. We should now be able to cast up to AA+-Rank spells without too much interference, and I figured out how to compensate for the magilink bonds weakening over distance, so I'd say our maximum range with spells has increased to roughly seven-hundred fifty meters!"_

" _Excellent. Any last-minute concerns related to your new configuration?"_

" _None at all!"_  Ruby smiled internally, strapping the Interface Bracer onto her left arm just before the wrist. Normally, she could just directly link her arm to the weapon she'd modified, but, due to not wanting to reveal her cybernetics, she'd had to settle for swapping her regular Knight's Clothing bracer for the Interface Bracer.

She brought her hand down to the small of her back, and brought Rosenkreuz around, giving the mental command to unfurl her new configuration as she did so.

The Device unfolded, barrel lengthening, handgrip sliding up into place, supports attaching to the Interface Bracer, linking with her directly, the Heads-Up Display flashing into being in her vision, and the normal feeling of her Device beginning to draw Mana from her made her smile outwardly, along with the sight. The modifications to the Formula Cannon did indeed seem to have gone as planned.

Though she wasn't too fond of the idea of being reliant on a mass weapon for her long-range capabilities, Ruby had admitted early on that she'd need one if she wanted to blend in with the Hunters of Remnant. That said, it had taken a while for her to finally get around to bother using one.

Part of her reluctance was a general Midchildan aversion to Mass Weaponry, that, despite her rather Belkan upbringing, had still been instilled in her, and part of it was simply concerns about ammunition. After all, weapons with physical ammunition could run out long before their wielder ran out of mana. On top of that, physical ammunition could be expensive, jam a weapon if made improperly, could be lost or stolen, and could go off early if exposed to the right kind of trigger.

In all, the only solid munitions weapon Ruby was at all fond of was the Formula Cannon built into the Fortress System, and that was a hybrid: She could cast with it, albeit with less range and power than with Rosenkreuz's normal modes, as well as send spikes of metal downrange, and, thanks to the weapon's ability to form its solid projectiles out of mana, she didn't have to worry about her concerns with ammunition. Thus, when she had finally acquiesced to the necessity of a mass weapon, she had set out to modifying the Formula Cannon, instead of getting a standard firearm.

There hadn't been many modifications required after the separation from the Fortress System, if she were to be honest. The main two had been the ability to use magazines and the addition of a large magazine port, where she could load the weapon as to not draw attention to the fact the weapon didn't actually need loading, or load specialized rounds. Given that its solid projectile mode was a railgun, she didn't need more sophisticated ammunition than steel or iron spikes, and it was even advanced enough to compensate for different size spikes, provided they were straight. She'd taken advantage of this, and, with the assistance of Rosenkreuz and Taiyang, fashioned several magazines of specialized spikes, each containing small reservoirs of Dust, to give the rounds special effects in battle.

The only other modifications even worth mentioning were the addition of heat vents so she could cover more of the weapon's internals with plating to reduce potential damage in the field and the aforementioned plating.

"I've said this before, and I'll say it again, that thing's a monster." Yang commented from the bench, gazing up at the Knight's weapon. Ruby hefted the black, red, and silver rail-cannon, turning to face her.

"This 'monster' is one of the handful of weapons I trust." She said, grinning, right hand coming around and taking ahold of the foregrip. "This is the CFW-X-02-F/M/AB Formula Cannon." She raised the 'barrel' to point at the ceiling. "I could kill an airship with this with ease, and mission-kill most armored vehicles in a single shot."

"Overkill, much?" Yang asked, also grinning at Ruby's subtle but still present enthusiasm for the weapon.

"Oh, certainly. But, to quote a source called 'Tv Tropes', 'There Is No Kill Like Overkill'."

The Blonde Brawler shook her head at that with a grin, but before she could say anything, the intercom came on.

"Would all first-year students please report to Beacon Cliff for initiation? Again, all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff immediately." Glynda Goodwitch's voice sounded, before the intercom fell silent again.

"We probably ought to get going." Ruby noted.

…

…

"For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest." Ritter Ozpin told the assembled students, as they all stood on the launch platforms on the cliff overlooking the Emerald Forest.

_I completed my training already._  Ruby mentally noted with amusement, as Glynda Goodwitch began to speak.

"Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams. Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates... Today." The Deputy headmaster informed the crowd. Ruby caught a few murmurs from the other students.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon. So it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well. That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years." Ritter Ozpin announced, taking over from Glynda again.

_Wait, what? Why? Ritter Ozpin, are you just messing with us?_

"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path... Or you will die." The elder Knight continued. "You will be monitored and graded through the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. We will regard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately. Are there any questions?"

_Several, but none I care to ask aloud right now._

One of the other students, however, raised his hand, and as Ruby glanced over, she noticed that it was the same student who'd gotten confused about his locker number earlier.

"Good! Now, take your positions." Ritter Ozpin said, instead of actually allowing the student to ask his question. Ruby just shook her head as she set herself into a combat stance.

How, precisely, the students were sent into the forest for initiation was one of the things Taiyang and Qrow had told her and Yang, so she wasn't surprised or even startled when the platforms each student stood upon began launching the students into the air.

"Uh, sir? I've got, um... A question. So, this landing... Strategy thing? Uh, what is it? You're, like, dropping us off or something?" He asked, apparently missing the other students down the line being launched.

"No. You will be falling." The elder Knight told him, before the younger one spoke up.  _After all, a Knight is supposed to help people. If that means helping this idiot figure out what's going on..._

"Blonde." She addressed the clueless student.

"Huh?" The student looked over at her, and she gestured behind herself.

"Learn to pay better attention to your surroundings." Ruby told him with a grin, as, judging by the "Woo-hoo!" behind her, Yang was launched into the air.

She had just enough time to note his expression of surprise mixed with shock before the platform underneath her own feet activated and propelled her into the air.

She twisted around as she flew, glancing back at the final student in line as he was launched, too. His arms were up in the air as he flailed around in confusion and apparent fear.

Ruby sighed.  _Why do I get the feeling he really doesn't belong here?_  She wondered irrelevantly, before turning her attention back to herself. She already had a landing strategy in mind, which meant she simply waited, enjoying the rush of air as she flew.

It took a surprising amount of time before she was lower than the treetops, and, glancing around, she saw no one, though she did hear the noise of something heavy impacting a tree, followed by a shouted "thank you!".

Deeming that irrelevant, as she was rather certain the person yelling couldn't hear her, she activated her own landing strategy, a remarkably simple one, in fact.

The four black wings of Sleipnir came into being, and she simply lightly touched down, Formula Cannon at the ready.

To the side, she caught the sound of several bushes moving, and a girl she recognized stumbled out of the shrubbery, stopping dead as she made eye contact with Ruby.

Ice blue met metallic silver.

…

…

_Stupid bushes._ Weiss Schnee thought with annoyance as she stumbled through the underbrush of the Emerald Forest. _Making me stumble like this._

The heiress had landed a decent depth into the forest, her landing strategy having been to leap from glyph to glyph on the way down, allowing her significantly more progress than most students would have made, though she had eventually decided to save her Aura by coming down to the forest floor and make her way through on foot.

She banished these thoughts as she stumbled into a clearing. There was, after all, someone else in the clearing. Hopefully, they'd be worth being a Schnee's partner.

Weiss glanced up, and stopped dead.

The girl she'd met just as she'd arrived stood there, the veteran, as she'd mentally catalogued her. She had dressed in some kind of black and red armored dress, carrying a massive weapon she didn't recognize which was larger than either of them, but neither of those facts are what caught her attention.

No, what made her stop was the simple fact that four small black wings extended from her back.

_Faunus?_ Her mind sped up and her body tensed, before she realized one simple fact.

There was no conceivable kind of faunus that would have four wings, as no animal on Remnant had more than two, and every faunus had the traits of a defined type of animal.

_Then why does she have wings? Something related to her Semblance, perhaps? No matter. I shall inquire later._ She focused back onto the present, now regarding the girl with curiosity instead of hostility.

"I suppose we are partners for now." The girl spoke, her odd accent once again making Weiss wonder where she was from. She'd never heard any accent remotely like it, and given the wide variety of people she'd met as a result of all her father's business dealings, she'd heard nearly every conceivable one.

_Focus. This is no time for idle wanderings of the mind._ She chided herself, before nodding in response to the girl's earlier statement.

"It would seem so." She put her hand out, in greeting, as the rules of etiquette demanded. "Weiss Schnee."

The girl seemed to hesitate for a moment before taking the offered handshake.

"Ruby Nakajima."  _Sounds Mistralian,_ Weiss noted.  _Perhaps she's from an outlying village?_  She dismissed the thought. She had more important things to do than speculate pointlessly.

Without any preamble, Weiss turned, glancing through the forest, taking charge as a Schnee should.

"I believe our quarry is located in this direction." She stated, pointing towards where she presumed the forest temple was located. When she got not verbal response, she glanced back to the veteran- _Her name's Ruby, not using someone's name is impolite, you were raised better-_ , and noticed the girl had her scroll out, the back-blackout deactivated so Weiss could see what she was doing. Ruby had pulled up a map of some sort, and as Weiss moved closer, she realized it was a map of the Emerald Forest, with various points tagged with markers.

"According to this map, it is actually that way." Ruby pointed with her massive weapon, before collapsing her scroll and clipping it to her belt.

_Well, at least she's contradicting me with logic and facts instead of simple oppositional defiance._ The heiress mentally admitted, still vaguely annoyed that she'd been ignored originally, but somewhat gratified that her partner had demonstrated that she could make use of more than just weaponry and could actually think to use whatever tools were on hand, even if it was just looking up a map of the area.  _Wait a moment…_

"What makes you sure of that? A normal map wouldn't have our objective on it." Weiss noted.

"It is an archaeological map." Ruby replied, setting off in the direction she'd indicated. "There are very few potential sites in this forest, and only one both far enough from the cliff to be a proper test, yet close enough as to not take an overly long period of time to reach and return."

_Makes sense._ Weiss admitted, following. She'd held rather low expectations for most of the Beacon students, believing that most of them would simply charge through the forest blindly, without a second thought, but here her newfound partner had shown none of that, instead calmly using a tool at her disposal to locate the objective, and making so clear without much in terms of disrespect.

Add to that her bearing, that of a trained warrior with confidence in her skills, and her short, to-the-point yet not disrespectful manner of speech…

At this point, Weiss was starting to get unnerved.

_This girl, Ruby, is so much like Winter on-duty it's beginning to scare me._

…

...

"Grimm." Ruby abruptly announced after a few minutes. The two had come to a small clearing, which Ruby had stopped in the middle of, to check her map again.

Neither of them had spoken, which had both suited and put off Weiss in equal measure.

On one hand, she did want to learn more about this strange girl, but on the other, she wasn't very good with social interaction, and knew it.

"Where are they?" Weiss asked, drawing Myrtenaster, and idly spinning the revolving Dust-chamber mechanism, as was her habit.

In response, Ruby raised the massive weapon she wielded. The  _-barrel?-_  split into two halves, then the halves slid slightly apart. Blood-red lightning surged between the split barrel sections, then, with a loud lightning-bolt noise, a bolt of something too fast to see lanced from between the sections, the only indication of its passage being the blood-red trail it left behind, and the effect on the unfortunate Beowulf it hit as the Grimm emerged from the treeline.

The Grimm detonated as the projectile hit it, punched through with enough force to vaporise a large percentage of the thing's body, and kept going, straight through several more Grimm, the noise of something exploding reaching Weiss's ears about the same time a very large tree behind the Beowulf pack toppled over.

The weapon's wielder winced, as Weiss stared at her partner.  _What the hell kind of weapon is that? So much power…_

"Ich habe nicht erwartet, dass der Grimm so zerbrechlich ist... Vielleicht sollte ich die Kraft auf den Schienen senken?" Ruby wondered something aloud, albeit quietly, in a language Weiss didn't recognize.  _What are you saying? Or even, what language are you speaking in?_

A growl reminded the heiress that a few of the Grimm had not been killed by whatever her partner's weapon was, and she turned, raising Myrtenaster as she did so, assuming a fencing stance.

"Stirb, verfluchte Kreatur." Ruby's voice sounded next to her, again in some unknown language. A clunk of metal indicated that the 'barrel' of her weapon had slid closed again.

As Weiss charged forwards at the nearest Beowulf, she was aware of Ruby moving alongside her, the strange girl wielding the massive weapon as if it were a lance.

As Weiss impaled the Beowulf she'd charged, a wet noise indicated that Ruby's weapon had found its own target, though she rapidly focused on the Beowulf before her, as impaled did not mean dead, which the creature reminded her with a swipe of its claws.

She ducked under the blow as she pulled Myrtenaster from the Grimm's chest, slashing the blade's tip through the Beowulf's throat, dropping the beast. She spun to the side, searching for more targets, and only saw Ruby pulling her hand trom the last Beowulf's chest, the other  _-two, huh, not very many for a Beowulf pack, even with the dead_ \- lying dead, the bodies beginning to smoke.

"Ruby?" She asked, surprised, sheathing Myrtenaster.

"Hmm?" The other girl looked up at her.  _Was her hand silver there for a minute, or am I just seeing things?_  "Yes?"

"How did you kill three Beowulves that quickly?" Weiss asked.

Ruby hefted her massive weapon again.

"This is big enough to kill two at once." She smiled, slightly.

"Just what is it, if I may ask?"  _I've never seen a weapon like that before…_

"This? This is the CFW-X-02-F/M/AB Formula Cannon. Her name is Rosenkreuz."

"The what?" Weiss was confused by the sudden jumble of numbers and letters. She could recognize it was a weapon's designation, but beyond that it meant nothing to her.

"A railgun firing metal spikes that can also be used as a lance or claymore." Ruby's smile widened very slightly, even as she began to walk away, continuing in the presumed direction of the Forest Temple.

"Railgun?"  _I have no idea what a railgun is…_

"A railgun is a weapon that utilizes pulsed electromagnetic force to launch a projectile accelerated by the aforementioned pulses between two or more conductor rails."

"So it's like a coilgun but with rails instead of coils."  _I think I understand._

"An oversimplification with several inaccuracies, but some of the principles are the same, yes." Ruby told her.

"Close enough. And that would explain why it was so powerful…" Weiss mused. If coilguns powered by Dust were considered heavy anti-material weapons, a similar weapon, even one 'man-portable', would be overkill against most Grimm.  _Though, I understand the temptation for overkill where Grimm are concerned._

"A little more powerful than expected, I will admit. I may have to adjust the power output to the rails to avoid mass collateral damage, should we even find ourselves fighting in an urban environment."

Weiss winced as her partner said that.  _Yeah, that kind of destructive power in a city would not end well…_

"This will take too much time, at our current rate." Ruby abruptly noted, changing topic quite suddenly.

"What will?"

"Walking to the presumed location of our objective. Were I alone, I would be able to move much quicker."  _Hey, now._

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Weiss asked, growing annoyed again. She couldn't tell if she was being insulted or not, due to the other girl's flat tone, but it still annoyed her that her partner was insinuating that she was being slowed down by the heiress's presence.

"It means…" The other girl hesitated, then asked another question.

"Do you mind heights?"  _Huh?_

"Uh, no? Why do you-"

"Do you mind being carried?"

"Wait, what?" Weiss looked at her, confused by the questions.

"Please answer."

"Depends on the circumstances…" She trailed off in confusion.

"I shall take that as an 'I do not mind'." Ruby stated, slung her weapon onto her back  _-so it can compact, at least-_ , and walked over to the heiress.

"What are you-" She didn't manage to finish her sentence, as the smaller girl abruptly lifted her into a princess carry. "Hey! Put me down!"  _What the hell are you doing!_

Ruby ignored her, and leapt into the air. Her four black wings began trailing red, and the two rose up into the sky.

_What the hell. What the hell. We're flying. What._

"How?" Weiss asked in shock.

Ruby just gave her an enigmatic smile, before they stopped simply gaining height, and launched off in a burst of speed that made Weiss shriek and wrap her arms around the winged girl.

…

…

{End, Chapter 2}


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, everyone!  
> Sorry it took a while for this chapter! (I forget I hadn't put it up, whoops.)
> 
> Not much else to say right now.  
> Enjoy!

"I take it that's your Semblance?" Weiss asked as she staggered about, back on solid ground. While she didn't like admitting it, the abrupt flight had disoriented her a bit, and she was now finding it a little hard to keep her balance.

Still, the fact her partner apparently had flight, of all things, as her Semblance was opening up a lot of possibilities in Weiss's mind.

"Well, I obviously am not using Dust or wearing a flight suit of some kind." Came a very sarcastic response, though Ruby's face became blank again once the heiress looked at her, annoyed. "In all seriousness, please do not tell anyone. I wish to keep the full extent of my capabilities something of a secret."

_I can understand that. I don't show off my glyphs, after all. Well, not their full capabilities, anyway._

"That explains why you barely skimmed the treetops." Weiss noted, then, finally having regained her balance, turned to regard the clearing Ruby had landed in.

It was actually quite a large clearing, at least six hundred feet in length, and nearly two hundred in width. Set dead center in the closer end was the broken remains of a stone rotunda, in front of which stretched the remains of a stone path, leading across the clearing towards the Beacon Cliff.

"Indeed." Ruby stated in response to Weiss's comment, and she began to walk in the direction of the rotunda. "I believe this is our objective."

"Probably." Weiss agreed, following. Within the rotunda was a series of small pillars or pedestals, constructed of stone like the rest of the structure, atop which sat- _chess pieces?-._

"Chess pieces?" Ruby vocalized the confusion Weiss felt. "The relics are chess pieces? Why would-." She stopped suddenly, and adopted a thoughtful expression. "Ah. This is how teams are decided." She declared a few seconds later.

"What do you mean?" The heiress asked, confused.

"There are two of each kind of chess piece, and two of each color. I presume that the pairs who take the same color and type are, in turn, paired together to make the teams." Ruby explained.

"Makes sense." Weiss nodded her agreement. It was, after all, perfectly logical. "So, any preferences?" She asked as the two stepped into the ruined rotunda.

"No. Is this one acceptable?" Ruby asked, picking up a gold-colored knight. Weiss nodded in response.

"I guess this is it." A voice came from behind the two, and Weiss turned to see two girls exit the forest into the clearing. One she vaguely recognized, dressed in black and white, with a sword of some kind on her back and a bow on top of her head, the same black as her long hair. The other, a blonde, she didn't know at all, and she was in a tan jacket with a lopsided 'skirt' of sorts atop hotpants. On the girl's arms were a pair of bright yellow gauntlets, which the heiress presumed were her weapons.

"Hey, Ruby!" The blond threw an arm up and jogged forwards as she spotted Weiss's partner.

"Yang." Ruby said from Weiss's side, startling her slightly.  _I didn't hear you move._

"So, these are the relics?" The now-identified Yang said, glancing behind the two at the chess pieces on the pedestals.

"Presumably. Frau Belladonna." The winged girl added, nodding at the girl with the bow, who nodded back.

"Just call me Blake." The girl said, her voice quiet.

"Very well." Ruby nodded, and turned to Yang. "We have already chosen, if you were wondering." She raised her hand to show the girl the golden knight piece.

"Of course you chose a knight." Yang said, smirking at the chess piece in Ruby's hand.

"Ich bin schließlich eins." Ruby responded as she lowered her hand again, switching to the unknown language she'd used earlier.  _Again with that language._

Yang just shrugged.

"What language are you speaking?" The heiress asked her partner, annoyed.

"Do not worry about it." Ruby dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. "I shall stick to Valian." She told Yang.

"Alright. I don't really know what you were saying anyway." Yang muttered. "So, which one do you want?" She asked her bow-wearing partner, who was looking at the two with confusion.

"Huh?" Blake seemed very confused.  _I can sympathize._

"The 'relics'. Which one should I grab? Or should I just pick a random one?" The blonde queried as she walked into the rotunda.

"Any is fine…" The last of the four girls looked slightly bewildered, but she was now watching Ruby with suspicion, gaze mostly focused on her wings.

"So this one's cool?" Yang asked from behind the two, and Weiss glanced back to see her holding the other gold-colored knight piece.

"It's fine." Blake had kept her attention on Ruby's wings, not even bothering to glance at the piece Yang had chosen.

"Okay, I have to ask, how do you know each other?" Weiss finally gave into temptation and asked the question on her mind.

"If you are asking about Yang and I, I am-was living with Yang and her father for the time being."  _That answers one question and raises another._  "As for Blake and I, we met a few weeks ago." Ruby shrugged. "There is not much more to say, there. And why are you staring, if I may ask?" She tilted her head at Blake, in curiosity.  _On one hand, I was confused, too, on the other, I didn't stare. Much, anyway._

"Sorry." Blake apologized, rather than respond. Ruby just shrugged again.

"It is no issue. I am used to stares." She offhandedly noted, then began to walk in the direction of the stone path back towards Beacon Cliff. Weiss walked after her. "Given we have acquired the 'relics' we were to find, there is no reason to stand about. Let us return to Beacon Cliff." She said over her shoulder.

"Sounds like a plan." Yang stated, apparently following. "And we're gonna to have to work on your Valian. No one says 'let us', it's always 'let's' instead." She noted. "It makes you sound like a knight from a fairy tale."

"Ich bin ein Ritter." Ruby responded.  _And again with the unknown language._

To this, Yang didn't respond.

…

…

"Russel Thrush, Cardin Winchester, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark. The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces." Ritter Ozpin said to the four young men standing at the front of the stage, their pictures appearing on the large screen behind and above them.

The teams had all returned, the initiation test mostly uneventful after Ruby and her new partner Weiss Schnee _-Her name is Belkan, and yet she didn't recognize the Belkan language? Curious.-_ had met up with Yang and her partner, Blake. The only thing that could qualify for any label approaching exciting was the fight between two pairs of students against a large scorpion grimm, a Death Stalker, if she remembered correctly. And that had only been seen from a distance, as it had occurred after Ruby and the other three had already returned to the top of Beacon Cliff. A rather large bird-like Grimm had moved to interfere, but had gotten too close to Professor Goodwitch in the process, and been flattened against the cliff face. The few hours afterward had been even more uneventful, mostly consisting of the new students standing around chatting while the Beacon Faculty evaluated their performance.  _And I still need to speak with Ritter Ozpin…_

"From this day forward, you will work together as Team Cardinal, led by... Cardin Winchester!" The Knight in question continued from his previous statement, as a final wave of polite applause swept through the audience. The newly-made Team Cardinal left the stage, a different quartet taking their place in front of the senior Knight. Ruby idly noted that the blonde she'd had down as not belonging was one of the four, though, then again, during the battle against the Death Stalker he'd seemed to be in command, and had done an admirable job. The pair of pairs had eliminated the massive Death Stalker Grimm in quite a short period of time under his directives.

"Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team Juniper." Ozpin told them, as the orange-haired girl, Nora, going by the pictures of the students on the screen, latched onto the tall, dark-haired boy in green, his name apparently being Lie Ren. "Led by... Jaune Arc! Congratulations, young man." He added, as the blond's picture moved to the front of the line-up on the screen.

The blonde froze completely, surprise written across his features. The redhead next to him, Pyrrha, going by the screen, nudged his shoulder in what Ruby presumed was a gesture of support or congratulations, but all it succeeded in doing was unbalancing him. As a result, Jaune ended up flat on his rear, much to the audience's amusement.

After a few moments, Ozpin cleared his throat slightly, and the new team left the stage, as Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang walked on, stopping in the same place as all the previous teams.

"And finally: Blake Belladonna, Ruby Nakajima, Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao Long. The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team Ruby. Led by... Ruby Nakajima!"  _Wait, what?_

Ruby froze slightly as she processed this. Beside her, Weiss stiffened slightly, as well. Blake started clapping politely, and Yang gave her a friendly clasp on the shoulder, accompanied by a "Nice!".

_Ritter Ozpin, you know I am leaving, hopefully before the first school year is out. Why did you choose me?_

…

…

"So, this seems to be our room." Yang said aloud, trying to make conversation as the newly made team entered their assigned dorm room.

The room was both decent-sized and rather small at the same time. If it was to be for two people, it was more than large enough. If it was for four, it was slightly cramped, and judging by the four beds, along with the fact that the team had only been assigned one room, it was for all four of them.

"Seems so." Weiss's response had been rather terse, and she seemed to be a bit annoyed at something, and although they'd only met a few hours ago, Yang had something of an idea why. After all, she'd started behaving like this immediately after Ozpin had announced that Ruby would be Team Leader for the team.

Yang glanced back at the white-haired girl with annoyance of her own, and noticed Weiss just shake her head at something, before walking over to one of the beds, slinging her suitcase onto it.

Blake followed her lead, taking one of the end beds, setting her bags down on top of the pillow.

Ruby took the bed at the other end of the room, leaving Yang with one of the middle ones.

She shrugged, and set her own bags next to the bed before opening one and pulling out a set of nightclothes.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm tired. I vote we set up the room tomorrow morning before classes, not tonight." The blonde brawler said with a yawn, stretching as she did so.

"I second that." Blake agreed. Weiss just nodded, and Ruby did the same, as she slipped into the small in-suite bathroom, a bundle of clothes under her arm.

…

_Be honest. Just who or what are you?_ Blake Belladonna wanted to ask the small girl who'd just emerged from the dorm room's small bathroom, dressed in nightclothes that concealed everything, even her hands and feet.

Oh, Ruby seemed human, on the outside, at least, and most of the time. But the wings that she'd seen in the forest belied that, making her seem to be a faunus from appearance…

Except for the fact that every faunus had the traits of a specific animal, and there was no animal with four feathered wings. Four wings, yes, as insectoid faunus existed, albeit they were rather rare. Feathered winged faunus also existed, quite obviously, but nothing had both traits at the same time.

Add the fact her wings wings seemed to appear and disappear seemingly at random, and that made Blake doubt she was a faunus, but even that wasn't what sealed her suspicions.

No, what really made her doubt the girl was a faunus was the simple fact she didn't smell like one. But what gave the catgirl pause what that she didn't smell human, either. Her scent was closer to human than faunus, but was still too different. Not to mention, she smelled heavily like metal. Overwhelmingly, in fact, far more than if she simply had a cybernetic limb, which was about the limit of melding flesh and machine.

_Well, sometimes she smells like strangeness and metal._  Blake amended her thoughts. When Ruby wore that strange armor of hers, she couldn't smell any of the metal or odd scent. Then again, she couldn't smell Ruby at all when she wore the armor, which set more than a few mental alarm bells ringing. How the armor blocked Ruby's scent completely was a mystery to Blake, and that wasn't something she was at all comfortable with. After all, mysteries could come back to bite her later, which was something she always tried to avoid.

Then again, the girl was almost completely a mystery to her. She knew a bare handful about her; she knew the girl knew an alcoholic huntsman, that she seemed to always conceal everything below her neck, that she apparently had lived with Yang, that she spoke a language Blake didn't even find familiar, and that she apparently had a family somewhere that Yang didn't know much about, though Blake had barely caught any of the conversation. Oh, and that she apparently had some sort of claws, provided the Huntsman's comment in the bar when she'd first met Ruby hadn't been metaphorical.

Of course, this all left Blake completely confused as to who and what the girl actually was. Yang, at least, appeared to be a normal human, but that didn't say much, and the fact that she'd partnered with a Schnee with apparently minimal complaints by said Schnee just added to the mix of confusion.

And that brought her mind to the other unexpected complication to her hoped-to-be-uneventful life at Beacon. That she'd been place on a team with Weiss Schnee.

If Blake were to be honest with herself, that was probably the bigger complication of the two, but it was, at least, a known complication, and thus one that could be planned for. All she had to do was avoid allowing the Schnee heiress to know that she was a faunus, and leave the team after graduation.  _Assuming the Schnee doesn't get fed up and drop out when she learns that not everything and everyone must bow to her._ She though with something approaching contempt.  _If the father's behavior is any indication of his children's, then she'll be gone in a few months at most._

Blake shook her head slightly to clear it. Her grudge against the Schnees wasn't relevant right now, she was stuck with one at least for a while, and besides, she'd left the White Fang. Her grudge never had been personal, it was simply that they were the most dominant face of the oppression of the faunus by humanity. Her personal cynicism and contempt for them had much more to do with the arrogance and dismissiveness the patriarch of the family displayed.

She glanced at the last member of her new team. Yang Xiao Long seemed to be a rather simple, uncomplicated girl. Easy-going and laid back, Blake honestly doubted she really had many secrets of her own, and she was very good at telling things like that. Even those who tried to act as if they had nothing to hide had tells, fairly obvious ones to those who knew what to look for. Yang shown none, which meant one of two things: One, that she was the best liar and actor Blake had ever met, or Two: That she genuinely had no secrets of her own to hide, which Blake suspected was the truth.

Of course, she probably knew a fair number of Ruby's secrets if the two really had lived together for a while, though on the other hand, she had no idea under what circumstances Ruby had lived with Yang under, and, again, Yang didn't seem to know much about Ruby's family, going by the previous night.

She shook her head again. It was getting late, and with little sleep last night from staying up reading, she was a bit too tired to continue down these lines of thought. With a yawn, she stood, grabbing her own set of nightclothes and entering the small bathroom to change.

…

…

"Get up." Ruby told Weiss, shaking her shoulder roughly. She didn't really do delicate wake-ups, especially not when the rest of the unit- _team-_ had already been awake for approximately an hour.

"Hmm?" Weiss made a sleepy-sounding noise, and tried to roll over, but was stopped from doing so by Ruby's hand, still on her shoulder.

With her free hand, the Knight grabbed the blanket, and pulled it from the sleeping girl, dumping it on the floor beside her bed.

"Wake up." She repeated, as the heiress sputtered something as she awoke. "We have things to do."

"Wha… Hey!" Weiss's sleepiness disappeared as she noticed her sudden lack of a blanket, and sounded offended, somehow, as she sat up.  _Not my fault you slept through your alarm._

"We have things to do." Ruby repeated herself again, as she turned and walked away from the girl.

"It is time to unpack the things brought with, and organize the room." She said over her shoulder, returning to her bed. "Or, rather, time for you to do so. The rest of us have already finished, or nearly so." She gestured around to the rest of the room.

Blake had claimed the bookshelf on her side of the room, and was finishing put organizing the books she'd unpacked, while Yang read on her scroll, her posters already up across the walls, and the rest of her things stowed onto a few of the shelves Blake hadn't claimed. Ruby, meanwhile, hadn't brought much at all, and thus had taken only a few minutes to unpack. A few changes of clothes, and quite literally nothing else. She had no physical books to bring, everything was digital. She had nothing she cared to display, unlike Yang's stuffed animal collection, and didn't care about posters or anything else along those lines. As a result, she'd been able to pack very light.

"Hmph" Weiss finally stood up as Ruby sat down, the heiress seeming quite annoyed.

"Class starts in forty-five minutes, by the way." The Knight called over, as she pulled up one of the books she'd been reading, idly tugging at the sleeve of her uniform shirt.

" _At least I can still wear my gloves with the uniform."_

" _Indeed. So, when are you going to tell her she's actually got an hour and forty-five minutes?"_

" _I'll let her figure it out on her own."_

…

…

{End, Chapter 3}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, and welcome back to another chapter of Revenant  
> Nothing much to report, other than some preemptive plothole fixing in Chapter 1!  
> Without further ado,  
> Enjoy!

“And that was completely uncalled for.” Weiss grumbled angrily as Team RWBY walked through the halls of Beacon, the heiress still annoyed at being mislead about the time earlier, which had resulted in her being quite frantic until she’d checked a clock and realized the discrepancy between said clock and her new leader’s words.

“Hallowed tradition of pranking one’s unit. I am not sorry.” Came the response, delivered with a small grin.

“This isn’t the military.” She continued grumbling, as Yang just shook her head, smiling all the while.

“No, but it was funny, watching you scrambling around trying to get everything unpacked and put away, until you checked the time.” The blonde noted with amusement, while the last member of the team seemed to decide it wasn’t her conversation, staying silent, though Weiss swore she saw a grin.

“Funny to you, not even close to me.” She grumbled again, continuing under her breath as the team walked into the first class of their stay at Beacon Academy, Grimm Studies with one Professor Port.

_ Hopefully, this won’t be too much of a bore.  _ Weiss thought, still muttering under her breath about her team, as she took a seat in the front row of the lecture hall. She set Myrtenaster point-first next to her, laning it up against the desk.  _ And I still don’t know why we need our weapons in-class. The syllabus never did explain that... _

…

…

_ Look like we weren’t the first ones here.  _ Pyrrha Nikos idly noted, as she followed her new leader, a boy by the name of Jaune Arc, into the lecture hall were class was held.

Indeed, another team had already arrived, Team RWBY, if she remembered correctly.

_ Yes, it was RWBY. The team seems named after the leader.  _ She noted with mild amusement.  _ Probably Ozpin’s idea of a joke. _

The first team had chosen the first row of seats, with in reverse order of the team’s acronym-name. Yang Xiao Long sat closest to the door, her feet on the desk as she waited, with Blake Belladonna, the not-so-secret cat faunus bookworm, between her and Weiss Schnee. 

Pyrrha mentally winced.  _ That… May not end well.  _ The Schnee family's distaste for Faunus, to put it mildly, was well-known.  _ Though, apparently Weiss hasn’t noticed, or she’d not be sitting next to her... _

At any rate, next to the Heiress who’d attempted to convince the redhead to partner with her, was the leader of the team, Ruby Nakajima, reading something on her scroll. Pyrrha hadn’t interacted with her in the slightest, and couldn’t tell anything about her by the way she acted or from her appearance, unlike the others.

Offhandedly, she passed her Semblance over the four, as she’d started doing out of habit a few years ago. Nothing strong enough to move even a pin, just enough to detect metal.

Yang had her scroll in her vest pocket and was wearing a necklace with military-style tags on it, her gauntlets heavily layered with metal. Blake had a thin ring in her vest pocket and her scroll, her weapon on the ground next to her. Weiss was wearing her odd hairtie-tiara, her pendant, and had her scroll in her vest pocket, her sword in roughly the same position as Blake’s.

At Ruby, Pyrrha nearly stopped dead as her Semblance passed over the girl. Only years of concealing her emotions from dealing with her fame allowed her to keep walking, and even then, she was sure her shock showed on her face.

_ What are you? Or, what happened to you? _ She wanted to ask the girl. 

Her body was filled with metal, all four limbs seemed to be mainly composed of some alloy she didn’t recognize, and the same alloy either sheathed or lay underneath her entire torso, running up her spine to the base of her skull, and even that contained some!  _ For the Gods’ sakes, even your eyes have metal in them! Your heart, lungs, everything!  _

Pyrrha’s eyes snapped over to the girl, who had looked up from her scroll, meeting Pyrrha’s sideways gaze. No expression was visible on her face, but her unblinking silver eyes bored into the redhead’s own bright green.

Pyrrha continued over to the other side of the room, maintaining eye contact as her thoughts raced.  _ Cyborg? Robot with Aura, somehow? What are you? And why did you look up right as I swept my Semblance over you? Could you feel it, somehow? And if you did, how? _

As she sat down, Ruby’s hand slowly snaked up to a silver cross pendant hanging over the front of her uniform, attached to a silver chain short enough the pendant hung at the level of her _ -also metal- _ collarbone. The girl turned away, and Pyrrha felt her Semblance blurring as the girl’s Aura activated.  _ Though, that’s a very strange Aura. Cybernetics interference? _

“Pyrrha?” A voice came from next to her, startling her away from her thoughts.

“Hmm?”

“You okay?” Jaune asked, mild concern in his voice. She hadn’t even noticed she’d sat next to him. “You just kinda… Spaced out there for a minute.”

“I’m fine. Just thinking, sorry.” She apologized.

“Oh? What about?” The blonde inquired with a friendly grin.

Before Pyrrha could answer, though it would have been a vague lie anyway, the Professor walked in, stifling any and all discussion in the classroom.

…

…

“Monsters! Deeeemons... Prowlers of the night! Yes, the creatures of Grimm have many names, but I merely refer to them as prey! Ha-ha!” The overweight Professor Port crowed as he addressed the class. 

Ruby sighed lightly, already growing bored. She’d expected a bit more from Ritter Ozpin’s school, but all the Professor had done so far was ramble at his students.  _ I would much prefer a sparring lesson with Lady Takamachi or Knight Signum to a lecture like this. Then again, I’d always prefer to spar than sit in a classroom. _

“Uhhhh... And you shall too, upon graduating from this prestigious academy! Now, as I was saying: Vale, as well as the other three kingdoms, are safe havens in an otherwise treacherous world! Our planet is absolutely teeming with creatures that would love nothing more than to tear you to pieces, and that's where we come in. Huntsmen! Huntresses… Individuals who have sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves! From what, you ask? Why, the very world!” The Professor continued, and Ruby sighed again. 

The Knight rolled her neck and glanced around the classroom, mostly at the other teams. None of what she saw impressed her  _ -though my bar for being impressed is rather high- _ she admitted to herself.

That noted, one other student did catch her attention. Pyrrha Nikos kept glancing at her out of the corner of her eye, and had been doing so since she had entered the room.  _ Or , rather, since she swept that field of some sort over me. _

Ruby couldn’t quite identify what, exactly, the field was, and for a moment, she had thought it to be a spell of some sort, before realizing that it wasn’t, as it wasn’t nearly complex enough. It had, however, been a mana field, and thus magical in nature, most likely something related to the crude usage of mana the inhabitants of Remnant called ‘Aura’. Rosenkreuz had guessed it to be an aspect of the Inherent Magic locally referred to as “Semblances’, and Ruby was reasonably sure her Device was correct on this.

Ruby shook her thoughts out of her head, they were irrelevant to the current situation.

Port continued droning.

“Despite smelling of cabbages, my grandfather was a wise man. ‘Peter’, he told me…” _ Wait, what? _ She glanced at the professor in confusion.  _ Sense, you are making none. _

Ruby leaned back, and crossed her arms over her chest, confident that even if she stopped paying attention, there was nothing of importance she would miss, turning her attention to other things.

_ “Thoughts on the ongoing attempt to salvage the Archon’s wreckage by the Atlas Kingdom?” _

_ “Well, there was very little in the way of important technologies left after the impromptu scuttling and subsequent blast we caused, so General Order One has probably still been upheld. Even if they found something, I would say that there’s simply not enough really left to study, Master.” _

_ “That is my guess, too. No, I was more concerned about the possibility of… Survivors, if that term can be applied to the corpse-weapons.” _

_ “That, I do not know, Master. I can monitor CCT traffic to and from the site, but that’ll tell us nothing until too late.” _

_ “Better than nothing. And at least Knight Ozpin knows that the Mariage may still be active. Hopefully he’d have passed a warning onto the CO of Atlas’s forces there. Still, I must wonder; why is it the Atlas Kingdom attempting to salvage the Archon, and not the Vale Kingdom?” _

_ “I don’t know, Master. Maybe that should be a question to ask Knight Ozpin about?” _

Ruby mentally nodded. Rosenkreuz was simply reinforcing a decision she’d already come to, on the topics she needed to talk to the older Knight about.

Inwardly, she was also glad that her Device had, in the last few days, finally gone back to her normal calm self, instead of the overly cheery demeanor she’d displayed after the crash.

_ “Thank you for going back to normal, by the way.” _

_ “Oh? Worried I’d turn into another Raising Heart?”  _ The Hybrid-Intelligent Device teased. Ruby mentally shuddered.

_ “No. Just, no. Everyone calls Lady Takamachi the ‘White Devil of the TSAB’, but Raising Heart is the true devil of the two!” _

_ “You aren’t wrong, Master. You aren’t wrong.” _

Ruby closed her eyes, allowing the discussion with her Device to fade naturally, and beginning to pray, as she often did during lulls in her day. In many cases, she ended up praying more often that the priests and priestesses. 

Normally, she simply prayed for luck on the battlefield, but now her prayer was for the Atlas Kingdom salvage team. It was one of protection, against both whatever of the Mariage still ‘lived’, and against the creatures of Grimm.

After a while, her prayer came to an end, and she opened her eyes, just in time for the professor to loudly clear his throat.

“Ah-hem-hem!” He waited a few seconds, for the class to focus on him, before speaking again, his story apparently finished, or rather, nearly so. “In the end, the Beowolf was no match for my sheer tenacity, and I returned to my village with the beast in captivity and my head held high, celebrated as a hero!” The portly Port took a bow, for no other apparent reason than theater. “The moral of this story? A true Huntsman must be honorable!”

_ Honor… How do you define honor? What do you consider to be ‘honorable’? Is honor, to you, fighting your opponents on equal ground, never using any unfair advantages? Is it keeping your word, even when it may be detrimental? I have done many things most other Knights would consider to be dishonorable in the extreme, in the name of the two honors I possess; that the missions I undertake must succeed, and that I am undyingly loyal to my Ladies Hayate Yagami and Carim Gracia. That, to me, is all that matters on the battlefield. _

Ruby shook her thoughts out of her head as the Professor finished his little speech.  _ I should not be thinking of such things now. _

“A true Huntsman must be dependable! A true Huntsman must be strategic, well-educated, and wise! So, who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?” Port finished his monologue by looking around the classroom, as if looking for volunteers for something.

“I do, sir.” Weiss stated, her hand slowly raising. Her voice evidenced none of the frustration from earlier, apparently she’d put it out of her mind. Instead, it was a mixture of confidence and arrogance that colored her tone.

“Well then, let's find out! Step forward, and face your opponent!” The professor told the heiress, gesturing to a now-rattling and growling box next to his desk.

Weiss stood, raising her sword to her side as she did so, before she left the seats to stand in front of the door.

“Go, Weiss!” Yang cheered, apparently getting excited at the prospect of watching a fight in class.

“Fight well.” Blake told her.

Ruby stayed silent, simply watching with curiosity.

Port reached up, took ahold of his blunderbuss-axe weapon from where it rested above the digital board, and held it above the lock on the cage.

“Let the match... Begin!” With that, he smashed the lock, and stepped back.

A smaller Grimm burst from the cage the instant the lock fell, out of it’s containment before the broken piece of metal hit the floor. 

The thing looked a bit like a boar as interpreted by some demented mind. For one, someone had doubled the number of both tusks and eyes, and added the bonelike plates all grimm had, but the differences ran a bit deeper than that. It’s proportions were all wrong, and it’s front legs barely looked as if they could support the bloated body, while it’s hind legs were just as bloated, with all four paws seemingly upside down. Atop that, it did not move smoothly at all, half a limping gait like a badly sick animal, and half jerky twitches as if a puppet with damaged strings.

The overall effect would have been unnerving, if it had not been for two things. One, that Ruby had fought what were quite literally corpses reanimated by magic and machinery. The other… Ruby didn’t bother dwelling on, instead focusing on the small fight occuring in front of her.

The boar-Grimm immediately charged at Weiss, who attempted to use the thing’s own speed to impale it, but her rapier was deflected by the plate on the thing’s head. The heiress seemed to notice this, and rolled to the side right before it would have struck her.

“Ha-ha! Wasn't expecting that, were you?” Port commented from the sidelines. Weiss threw him a look, and charged the boar-Grimm.

This simply resulted in the same effect as last time, her blade deflected off of the thing’s armored head, only, this time, the heiress’s weapon became trapped at an angle between the thing’s tusks, to which it responded by thrashing it’s head back and forth as she struggled to maintain her grip on the rapier’s hilt.

“Bold, new approach. I like it!” The professor continued his combat commentary. Weiss glared at him, and, as if to take advantage of the distraction, the boar-Grimm twisted it’s head to the side, throwing the heiress clear, but also letting the rapier clatter to the floor. 

“Oh-ho! Now what will you do without your weapon?” The professor continued commenting.

The boar-Grimm charged at Weiss, who dodged to the side, allowing the thing to crash face first into the armored front of the first row desks. The heiress slided across to floor to grasp her rapier in a single, smooth motion, standing as she did so. 

The boar-Grimm immediately charged after her, and she responded with a gesture from her rapier-wielding hand. 

Ruby felt mana stir, and a pale blue _ -Magic Circle!?- _ formed under the thing, before it was abruptly launched into the air. A similar pale blue- _ Not a magic circle, it’s not nearly complex enough. Semblance, most likely- _ glyph of some sort formed beneath the heiress, and she, too, was launched into the air, slashing her blade across the boar-Grimm’s unarmored belly. 

The boar-Grimm squealed, and fell silent, going limp as it landed. Weiss landed in a pirouette, elegantly spinning towards the professor as she sheathed her rapier in the same motion.

“Bravo! Bra-vo! It appears we are indeed in the presence of a true Huntress-in-training! I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. Be sure to cover the assigned readings, and... Stay vigilant! Class dismissed!” 

Weiss glanced back towards her team. Yang applauded, Blake did the same, only quieter, and Ruby inclined her head in acknowledgement.

…

…

“Ritter Ozpin, a word, please.” Ruby’s voice rang out within the hallway, and the Headmaster of Beacon and elder Knight turned to regard the girl behind him. Glynda, who had been walking behind the headmaster, also turned. Ruby glanced at her, then returned her attention to Ozpin. “Is there somewhere we may talk… Clandestinely? Related to the matter of my… Attendance here?”

“Of course. Glynda?” The deputy headmaster turned slightly to his second-in-command, who held his gaze for a moment, sighed, nodded, and walked off. “Follow me.” Ozpin gestured with his cane, and the two continued down the hallway, coming shortly to a door leading out to a balcony.

“What’s on your mind, Knight Ruby?” Ozpin asked in Belkan as the two came to stand near the edge of the balcony, facing the sunset. Ruby glanced to the side, at the third occupant of the rooftop. Ozpin made a small sound of amusement, then called over to Professor Port in Valian.

“Peter, could you do me a favor?” He asked, then switched languages to one Ruby didn’t know.  _ “Rosenkreuz, you’re going to have to be on translator duty more often.” _

“Hmm? Oh, Headmaster! Of course, far be it from me to interrupt.” The portly Port nodded, and left the rooftop. Ruby turned back to the elder Knight, and he answered the unspoken question.

“It’s not uncommon for new students to seek advice privately. I simply instructed him to go do something in the meantime.” He had, at least, switched back to Belkan.

“Why didn’t you say that in Valian?” She asked.

“It concerns… Local matters, let’s put it that way.” 

“Very well.” Ruby inclined her head, and turned to watch the sunset, the cybernetics in her eyes automatically adjusting to the sunlight. She stayed quiet for a few moments, before starting again.

“Why did you make me the leader of my team?” The younger Knight queried the Elder. “You know I plan on leaving as soon as I can. It doesn’t make sense, to me.”

“I know. I never did expect you’d be here forever.” Ozpin turned to look down at Ruby, as she glanced up at him. “But it is not unheard-of for teams to change composition during their time at the academies, and in the time you do spend here, I think you can both teach and learn from my students. And there is no better way to do that then to place you in charge.”

Ruby turned back to the sunset, considering his words for a few moments before nodding.

“That… Makes sense.” She sighed, a long, drawn out sigh.

“I have… I’ve something else to ask you. Two things, actually.”

“Go ahead.”

“That book, at the edge of your desk… That's your Storage Tome, isn’t it?” Ruby asked. Ozpin chuffed in amusement.

“Perceptive… Yes, it is. I’m a... Unique case as far as Wolkenritter are concerned. I made myself one by accident.”

“By accident? Sounds like an interesting story.” Ruby grinned as she glanced up at him, and he both cringed and smiled at the same time.

“It is, but is also one I don't wish to share at present.”

“Fair enough.” She nodded again. “My second question…” She trailed off, then shook her head. “Never… Never mind.”

_ That's not a topic I wish to speak of yet. I shouldn't have even begun to bring it up. _

Ozpin have her a curious look, then shrugged. 

“Very well.”

Neither of them spoke after that, though after a few minutes, Ozpin turned away, and left the roof leaving the younger Knight standing alone, watching the sun slip below the horizon.

…

…

{End, Chapter 4}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please let me know how you think this was!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, everyone!  
> Welcome to another chapter of Revenant!  
> Not a lot to say this time, other than to note that I have fixed all the plot holes I have noticed on previous chapters.  
> Without further ado,   
> Enjoy!

"So, where'd you disappear to after last class?" Yang's voice brought Weiss out of her reading trance, and she looked up from her novel to see their team leader closing the dorm door behind her.

"Went to talk with Ritter Ozpin." Came the quiet reply.  _Ritter? What's that mean?_

Blake apparently shared her confusion, as she asked the same question a second later.

"What does 'Ritter' mean?" The black-haired girl inquired. Ruby just threw a hand out somewhat dismissively.

"It is a term in Belkan. Do not worry about it. Ozpin has earned it, and as it is his highest title in my eyes, I shall use it as my main way to address him."  _Rude, and that doesn't answer the question._

"Belkan?" Weiss was the one to ask this time.

Ruby sighed, and crossed one arm over her chest to support the other, in which she rested her head. She looked annoyed, but not just with Blake and Weiss. Oddly, Yang showed no interest in the discussion at all.  _Then again, she got her answer, and has lived with Ruby, so she probably knows this already._

"Belkan is my native language. Please, do not inquire further." Ruby sighed again, and crossed over to her bed, pulling some nightclothes from her dresser as she did so.  _That answered a single question, incompletely, and raised a few more. Just who are you, Ruby Nakajima?_

…

…

Ruby sighed again as she entered the small ensuite bathroom to shower and change into her nightclothes. She shouldn't have even mentioned the Belkan language, but her concentration was very disrupted, as her severed link with her two Lords _-or rather, Ladies-_  was messing with her head more and more every day. While she could push the effects off, for the most part, when she got tired or was in pain, it became difficult to shield herself from the mental interference, which resulted in her getting distracted.

Normally, she wouldn't be so tired, as she could go for a few days without needing rest if she was required to, but after the sun had gone down, she'd cast Sealing Force Field, and had exhausted herself with testing out her other spells, using Rosenkreuz's recent correction calculations. And, she had been stupid enough to test Rosenkreuz's Blaster Mode under the AMF conditions. This had been a mistake, and now she was paying for it.

Ruby slung her clothes and towel onto the counter and stripped off her uniform, before stepping into the shower, and turning the water on.

Only then did she allow herself to hunch over and begin hacking up blood.

_Blaster Mode has done it's damage. And I only tested the first setting for two spells. Well, that's what I get for being arrogant enough to assume it wouldn't do much…_

It took a few minutes for the coughing to subside, and she shook her head at her own foolishness as she cast a healing spell on herself. Soothing crimson light wrapped itself around her body, mending her self-inflicted injuries.

Ruby closed her eyes, sighed again, and began to go over her cybernetics for any remaining damage, though the spell should have repaired anything major.

Her hands she checked first. There was no evidence of any damage on the black metal of her fingers, or her silver palms and backs of her hands. Even the crimson detailing was intact, the small lines outlining her knuckles and the creases of her palms unmarred. The black metal of her fingers ran up the backs of her hands, merging at her wrists to encompass the entirety of her arms, thin silver lines continuing up the sides. None of these showed any damage in the slightest.

Her legs were the same, black, silver, and red metal undamaged to where it melded with her flesh at her hip joints, though those, too, were artificial underneath the skin.

Lines of the black metal ran up her sides, coming up underneath her arms and wrapping around her chest in two thin lines, one at the lower edge of her ribcage, and the other at her artificial collarbone. The rest of her front was actually flesh and blood, though beneath the skin there was a significant amount of artificial sections. Again, she neither saw nor felt damage.

It was her back that was a different story form the rest of her body in cybernetics. None of her back was organic at all, though parts of it felt as if they were. It was instead mostly the same black metal, save her shoulder blades and spinal column, which were both silver instead, though the plates along her artificial spinal column, running all the way from her tailbone up to the base of her skull, were each edged with red.

_Nothing damaged that I can see or feel. Good. Just the question of just how cybernetic I really am… No use wondering now._

Ruby shook her thoughts from her head. It was no use to dwell on such things now.

She quickly finished washing up, dried and clothed herself, and left the small bathroom.

Her uniform went into a small clothes hamper the team had set up for communal laundry, and she flopped down onto her bed, pulling her scroll from where she'd left it. Before she could do anything, she felt a weight pull at the edge of her bed, and she glanced up to see Blake Belladonna sitting there.

"Are you alright?" Blake asked without preamble, golden eyes - _the same shade as Cinque's, even-_  boring into silver.

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked, slightly confused.

"Ruby, I could hear you coughing up a lung, and with very wet coughs, at that. I've learned to tell the difference between coughing because you're sick, and coughing because you're injured. What happened?"

"Don't worry about it. It is no longer a problem." Ruby told her.  _Curse your better-than-human hearing. And that every time you look at me, your eyes make me think of Cinque._

Blake didn't respond for a few seconds, simply holding her gaze with those golden eyes of hers before standing, and leaving without a word.

_Did I offend her, somehow?_ Ruby wondered, then mentally shrugged it off.

" _Any progress made?"_

" _None yet, master. I should be done with analysis by midnight, but I recommend you get some sleep, instead of waiting for me to finish. You need it."_

" _Very well. Prayers first, then sleep."_

Ruby set down her scroll next to the bed, and arranged herself into a traditional prayer position. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and began to pray.

…

…

It was a scream that awoke Blake in the middle of the night, the cat faunus sitting bolt upright, one hand immediately finding Gambol Shroud's hilt.

"What's going on? Are we under attack?" She asked the first question that came to mind, her years of being in the White Fang coloring her immediate response, as she rolled out of her bed onto the floor between it and the wall.  _Even here isn't safe!?_

She slowly raised her head to peek over the bed, taking stock of the situation. Weiss was sitting up and looking around with alarm, Yang had rolled out of bed with an undignified noise of confusion. Ruby… Ruby was in the corner crying, her hands on the wall as she whispered something in a strange language, most likely the 'Belkan' she'd mentioned earlier.

"Ruby?" Blake stood up, setting Gambol Shroud down on her bed, as Yang untangled herself from her blanket, and stood up herself. _What?_

"Oh hell… Again?" Yang said, her tone something Blake couldn't quite decipher. The blonde sighed.

"PTSD?" The Schnee heiress was the one to ask this particular query, as she left her bed, to which Yang nodded.  _And what would you know about that, miss sheltered-modern-aristocrat?_

"Yeah. I wouldn't try to approach her right now, if I were you." She cautioned Weiss, who ignored her, and continued toward the girl, crouching near her.

"Ruby…" Blake didn't get to hear whatever Weiss was going to say, as the girl in the corner's nearest hand left the wall and slashed out towards the heiress, who fell back as blood glinted in the dim light. The cat faunus's hand found Gambol Shroud again, and this time, she drew the smaller blade from the larger one.

"The hell?" Weiss sounded less angry and more surprised as her hand went to her cheek. "How the hell?"

_The least of what you deserve. Shame it wasn't me who got you like that. Still, how'd she do that?_ Blake moved forward to get a better look, and stopped, stiffening as she got a good look at her team leader's hands.

Her fingers were black metal of some sort, and the back of her hand was silver, with small crimson lines outlining her knuckles, though the black of her fingers ran all the way up her hand in thin lines to where it disappeared into her sleeve. Thin blades projected from each fingertip, running an inch or so further, and beneath the girl's fingers Blake could see the glints that indicated the blades ran along the entirety of each finger's length.  _Those are her 'claws'?_

"What…" Blake tilted her head slightly. While cybernetic prosthetics were not unheard-of, or even uncommon in the ranks of the huntsman, for someone to have such at such a young age was incredibly rare. And she'd never heard of weapons being built into prosthetics, it simply wasn't done.

"Hmm?" Yang glanced over at Blake, saw where she was looking, and swore. "Crap, she clawed through her gloves, didn't she?" Blake's partner shook her head, her emotions still undecipherable. "Damnit. How bad did she get you, Weiss?"  _Wait, what?_

"Not very, just a minor scratch. It should stop bleeding soon." The heiress replied.

Ruby had, by this point, stopped crying and whispering, and was now in the process of curling into a ball. It was Yang who tried to approach her next, which resulted in the smaller girl slashing at her with the blades on her fingers. Yang, unlike Weiss, was quick enough to dodge completely, though this resulted in the blonde colliding with a bed as she dodged backwards.

"Oof."

"Is she… Usually like this at night?" Blake asked, allowing her confusion to color her tone. She had some experience dealing with PTSD and related conditions, but never really had learned what to do about them, courtesy of Adam's 'Trauma is a sign of weakness' opinions on the matter.

"Yes and no… Usually she's not attacking everyone who comes close. Normally she'll only claw you if you try to touch her." The blonde brawler responded, sitting up.

"Ruby…" Weiss stood up, finally, and moved over to the girl in the corner, who regarded her with terrified eyes. This time, however, she didn't attack the heiress, who gently took her into a light, and rather awkward, hug. Blake tilted her head again as the white-haired girl began to whisper quietly to her partner, who's response was to press herself against the other girl.

Blake sheathed Gambol Shroud, not entirely sure why she'd drawn it in the first place, and tossed the weapon onto her bed, just in time for a knock to sound on the door.

The three members of Team RWBY who weren't curled into a ball glanced at each other, before Weiss sighed, whispered something to Ruby soft enough that even Blake's faunus hearing couldn't catch it, and stood.

"I'll handle it." She muttered, before walking over to the door, opening it to reveal the nightclothes-clad forms of Jaune Arc and Pyrrha Nikos.

"Uhh, Hi? We're across the hall, and, uh, we kinda heard someone scream… Is everything alright?" Jaune asked, looking slightly nervous, his eyes going immediately to Weiss's cheek.  _Which is probably still bleeding…_

"It's fine, we just had a movie up too loud." Weiss replied, smoothly. "I've already told off the one responsible for the volume."  _Wow, not even a twitch. Guess daddy trained his little heiress well._  The bitter thought crossed Blake's mind, before she mentally shook it off.  _I never would have guessed you'd bother helping someone who hurt you, even just a little bit like that. What's your angle, here?_

"Well, if everyone's fine… But, uh, what happened to your cheek?" The leader of JNPR asked.

Weiss looked away, as if to hide embarrassment.

"Nothing! Don't worry about it! I was just a little careless!"

"Uh… Alright then? Goodnight?" With that, Jaune stepped away from the door, while the redhead, so far silent, just stepped back with him, allowing Weiss to close the door.

The heiress sighed, waited a few moments, then turned back to the rest of the team, including Ruby, who seemed to have recovered a bit if the fact that she managed to move to her bed without Blake noticing and with Yang still sitting on the floor was any indication.

"Alright, that's the fifth time in three months I've had to use that excuse to cover for someone having a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder induced episode. So I would like an explanation, please." Her expression softened. "After all, I can't help if I don't know enough to do so."  _Wait, what? The prissy princess has dealt with PTSD episodes before?_  Blake vocalized this confusion, though in much more polite language, and got a sigh and an eye-roll in response.

"Yes, I have, though 'dealt with' is sort of rude. I know it isn't exactly common knowledge, but my elder sister, Winter, is an active-duty Atlas Specialist." Weiss glanced off into the distance. "She came home a little under three months ago, on mental medical leave. Most of her unit was killed in combat, and she… Well, survivor's guilt exists and is called such for a reason."

Blake stared in disbelief.  _A Schnee, joining the military? One skilled enough in combat to survive something killing the rest of her unit, and one with enough humanity to feel guilty about surviving when no one else did? Absolutely absurd._

Weiss shook her head in annoyance at Blake, then turned to Ruby.

"Do… You wish to talk about what happened?"

Ruby glanced up at the heiress, then down again.

"Not… Too different." The girl said. "I am… I, too, was the only survivor of my unit. Of my ship's crew."  _Wait, What!?_

"What do you mean?" Weiss was the one to ask, as she sat next to Ruby, and moved to take on of the girl's metal hands. There was a wet metal sound, and Ruby allowed the heiress to do so. "And… If you don't mind… What happened to your hands? Is it… Was it the same, well, battle?"

Ruby let out a sad sound of amusement, before shaking her head, slowly.

"No… To explain the first…" Ruby took a deep breath, and let it out, lowering her head to stare at the floor. "I am the sole living crew member of the warship Archon. I was attached to the crew as a personal request of a Flag-Rank officer I am not allowed to name. During a routine patrol, the ship was hijacked, and during the ensuing fighting to regain control, the rest of crew who survived the initial attack were killed, however, there were still far too many of the hijackers alive for me to kill them all. Out of options, I contacted another Flag-Rank, asked for and received permission to scuttle the ship." She took another deep breath, let it out shakily, and continued. "The Archon's systems beyond propulsion and navigation had been locked down, so I slammed the ship into a mountain at its highest possible speed. While I managed to survive this impromptu scuttling, so too did a few of the hijackers, and I discovered this while leaving the wreckage. Unwilling to allow any to do so, once I was clear of the Archon's remains, I was able to remotely override the safeties of the ship's main gun, setting off a chain reaction within the intact weapons and power systems. There… Was not much left after that."

Ruby looked up, and Blake could see the haunted look in her eyes.

"When did this happen?" Weiss asked, quietly. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to." Ruby glance down again, before shaking her head.

"No, you deserve to know what I am allowed to tell you, after that. The Archon's hijacking and crash happened three months ago. I am still here because... " She shook her head. "That is classified."

"Three months ago…" Weiss muttered, then stopped, her eyes widening, and turned to Ruby. "Does the name 'Mariage' mean anything to you?" At that, Ruby reacted, flinching away.

"Dead things made only to kill by a dead king." She spat out the words with hatred. "Do not speak of such things to me."

_What does that mean?_  Blake wondered, before Weiss spoke again, drawing her attention back to the ongoing conversation, instead of the mental wanderings she was about to get lost in.

"They hijacked your ship, didn't they?" The heiress asked, then continued before Ruby could respond. "They're what killed Winter's troops. She told me this during her first PTSD episode, she though I was General Ironwood," Weiss snorted slightly, "And she said she'd screamed at one, asking what it was, and all it had said was 'Mariage'." She shook her head, then froze. "That means… Your ship is the one Winter was investigating… I asked her more afterwards and she just told me it to forget it, everything was classified…" Now Weiss was the one staring off into space, an contemplative expression on her face.

"So, about your hands?" Blake asked, attempting to move away from a topic that may trigger the smaller girl again. "I saw the blades, so, what's with that?"

"Oh, my hands?" Ruby slowly raised them, once again showing that her hands were made of metal. "I lost my original hands some time ago, and these replacements have a set of built-in weapons."

"How did you 'lose your hands'?" The cat faunus queried.  _One question at a time..._

"I was blown up." Came an almost casual response. "Over sixty-five percent of my body is cybernetic." She shrugged. "All four limbs included."

_Wait, WHAT!?_

…

…

{End, Chapter 5}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please let me know how you think this was!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again everyone!  
> Sorry this took so long!  
> Please, enjoy!

"All... Four… Limbs…" Blake repeated, sounding stunned. Weiss didn't respond, and Yang rolled over again, back towards the discussion.  _Ruby's opening up a lot quicker than she opened up to Dad, Uncle Qrow, and I, but, then again, we got told about magic on day one, and she hasn't said a thing about that yet. And she did explain that she's not supposed to tell anyone who doesn't absolutely need to know, so she probably won't say a word about that…_

Yang mentally shook off her thoughts and turned back to the conversation, just in time for Blake to round on her, the girl's voice accusing.

"You knew, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did." Yang casually confirmed, with a calmness she really didn't feel. "Ruby's lived with me the last few months, remember?" Blake glared at her, opening her mouth to say something, before apparently changing her mind, turning back to Ruby.

It was Weiss who spoke up next, however.

"How can you be so calm about that!?" She nearly shouted, her voice's volume only lowered just enough as so to not wake the teams in the neighboring rooms.

"About what, getting blown up? Or having over half of my body replaced by cybernetics?" Ruby asked.

"Both!" At that, the Knight shrugged again.

"I was unconscious before the blast registered, and I only awoke a few times afterwards, at least, before the surgeries were complete. I only woke up on the operating table once." She noted with the same casualness as if she were discussing the weather.  _What!? Now, THAT, you didn't tell me!_

"You… Woke up… On the operating table." Blake sounded a mixture of disgusted and horrified. "Did the doctors not even care to sedate you!?"

Ruby's head snapped up, something approaching anger clear on her face.

"Of course Doctor Scaglietti did! He is the best in the field, it is not his fault I had an unusual and varying resistance to the sedatives! And he stopped immediately when he realized I had regained consciousness. Well, almost immediately, he finished replacing my spine first. Bad idea to leave that undone. And I asked him to finish." She explained, to the growing horror of her audience. "It was not that bad." She added defensively, as she noticed the expressions of the other three. "Uno gave me a local anesthetic so that it would not hurt too much."

"Uno?" Yang asked, trying to push aside her horror, to focus on something different, hopefully to distract herself. "You've mentioned her before, but you never told me who she is…"

"Uno is Doctor Scaglietti's eldest daughter. She looks like a younger, female copy of him." Ruby noted with amusement. "And she is just as intelligent and skilled, if less experienced, than he is. Of course, all of his daughters are quite intelligent, even if some of them don't exactly show it."

"Sounds like a story there." Weiss commented, none of her earlier emotions showing on her face.  _Mood swing, much?_

Yang gave her a look, and Weiss explained.

"Emotional compartmentalization. A skill I had to learn young. Anyway, Ruby, you were saying?"

Ruby began to speak, but Blake interrupted before she could say anything.

"So, we're just… Going to let all that go? We're just going to ignore what you just told us!?"

Ruby gave her an annoyed look.

"Considering that I am the one it happened to, yes, we are. I would much prefer to talk about my siblings than about my injuries. Despite the fact that I do not honestly have any… I think the phrase is 'hang-ups', about my cybernetics, I am not exactly able to share the full details, as such information is classified. I have already skirted the boundaries of what I am allowed to say. For this I apologize, but I will not reveal classified information without orders to do so."

"So you are military." Blake observed. "Let me guess, Atlesian?" She queried, crossing her arms across her chest.  _Not even close, Blakey. Also, took you long enough to figure that out._

"I am a field-commissioned officer, yes. But the military I belong to is classified. And besides, my rank is not the title I prefer." Came a flat response. Blake raised an eyebrow at the Knight, who responded with another look of annoyance.

"Was lässt dich glauben, dass ich verpflichtet bin, es dir zu sagen?" Ruby asked the black-haired girl a question in Belkan, sounding more than slightly annoyed.  _Something about obligations and telling things?_

Everyone looked at their team's leader, who simply looked back, matching expressions of confusion with one of annoyance.

"Translation, please?" Yang requested.  _Or just teach me more of Belkan..._

Ruby looked at her, then sighed, bringing up one had to rub at the side of her head.

"I said something sort of rude. But, my point was, why should I give out classified information?" The Knight stated, before she sighed again, rubbed at her head with both hands, and yawned. Almost as if on cue, the other three members of team RWBY yawned themselves.

"Sleep on things? Keep discussing in the morning?" Yang suggested, yawning again.

Blake looked at her like she was insane, but Weiss nodded her agreement.  _Like either of them's going to get any sleep after that._

"Just, one last thing." Ruby spoke up again. "Nothing leaves this room. Please."

"I agree." Weiss stated. "None of what any of us said should be spoken of at all outside ourselves or where we could be overheard."

"Sounds like a good idea to me." Yang added her support.

Blake sighed, and nodded her own agreement.

"Fine. But this discussion isn't over, just… Postponed."

…

…

"So, where to, first?" Yang asked the other members of team RWBY. The four of them stood on the street curb directly in front of the Vale-Beacon airdock, having just come from the academy. It was, after all, a weekend, and Yang had taken charge, declaring that since no one had an idea of what to do, they would all go into Vale, and from there, decide on how to pass the time. It was a miniature vacation, of a sort, as Yang had said.

And given how awkward the last week had been, they needed it, in Weiss's opinion.

While the topics of Ruby's military service and cybernetics hadn't actually been brought up again, Blake, at least, had been treading very carefully around the girl, while Weiss had a very hard time restraining her curiosity. Only Yang had been relatively unaffected by the disclosures, but she had also lived with Ruby for a few months, and had privately confirmed to Weiss that she knew significantly more. However, she wasn't telling any of what she knew either, citing that she would not betray Ruby's confidence.  _She could at least explain why Ruby is wearing an armored nun's habit, of all things, though._

"How about a restaurant?" Blake suggested, one hand on her stomach.

"I told you you were going to miss breakfast, and you didn't believe me." Yang teased.

"Shush." Blake responded, grinning lightly.

"What do you think?" Weiss asked their quiet leader, who shrugged in response.

"I do not have any preference on where we go. With one exception; I steadfastly refuse to enter any place solely picked by Yang. As a result of certain events I will not speak of." Ruby's tone became vaguely affronted during the final sentence.

"Oh, come on. That was once, and I thought you'd appreciate it!" The blonde brawler protested.

"Well, I did not." Came the flat response.

"I know, just… Please, let me live that down."

"It was last weekend. Maybe in a few more weeks." Ruby told her, as Weiss looked at Blake in confusion, who just shrugged at her.  _There's a story there…_

"I think that's the best I'm going to get, isn't it?" Yang sighed. "Anyway, there's this noodle place that does really good Mistralian food down at the corner of forty-second and central. Transit station's less than a block away, sound like a plan?" She continued.

"I'm fine with that." Blake responded.

"Sounds like a plan." Weiss agreed.

Ruby didn't say anything, and when the other three looked over, she was gazing up at the sky with a blank expression, before her face split into a grin.

"Verbindung wiederhergestellt."

"Uh… Ruby?" Yang looked confused, mirroring the expression on Blake's face. Weiss didn't bother hiding her own expression of confusion and curiosity.

Ruby lowered her gaze, the grin still on her face. It wasn't any sort of feral expression, either, but a genuine smile.  _Why are you so happy all of a sudden?_

"Do not worry about it. Now, was a plan decided on?" She asked.

"Uhh… We decided on a Mistralian noodle place off of forty-second and central." Yang told her, to which Ruby nodded, and set off in the direction of the nearest public transit station.

"Well, are you three coming along?" The team's leader called out over her shoulder.

The three in question looked at each other in silent confusion over the sudden mood swing, before Yang and Weiss shrugged and followed.

Weiss heard Blake sigh and mutter something she didn't quite catch, before the last member of Team RWBY followed.

…

…

"Hey guys!" Jaune's voice pulled Pyrrha out of her thoughts, causing her to look up from her plate, which she'd sort-of been staring at as she contemplated life at Beacon Academy, and tried to stay awake.

"Hey! 'Sup?" Yang Xiao Long called back as Team RWBY entered the bistro where Team JNPR had decided to have lunch on their first weekend at Beacon.

As usual, Pyrrha reflexively swept her semblance over everyone again, noting that the amount and types of metal on Yang and Weiss hadn't changed at all between their current outfits and their uniforms, while Ruby and Blake had acquired more.

In Blake's case, it was a metal plate of some sort on her back, itself magnetized. Given that was where her weapon was, the purpose was quite apparent.

As for Ruby, her _-nun's habit? Why is the robot-girl in a nun's habit?-_ incorporated thin metal plates on the sides of her hips, like armor.  _Armored nun habit?_

Pyrrha tilted her head in confusion at Ruby's outfit, drawing a glance from Weiss. Ruby herself didn't seem to notice or care, though she twitched when the champion's semblance passed over her.

"You four having a good time out in Vale?" Yang asked as she sat down, drawing Pyrrha's attention away again.

_Get more sleep, Pyrrha. Your attention span is incredibly short and it shows._ The champion mentally chided herself.  _But that movie was worth staying up that late… No, focus._

She shook her head slightly and ran a hand over her face, sighing lightly.

"Everything okay, Pyrrha?" The Blonde Brawler asked a different question, Jaune having apparently answered her first one.

"I was up a bit too late last night watching a movie." The redhead replied, trying to stifle a yawn and failing.

"Heh, I get that." Yang chuckled and Pyrrha's face flushed slightly from embarrassment.

"So, how was your first week?" Jaune asked Yang, changing the topic.

"Eh. Was… Interesting, to say the least…" Pyrrha tuned the rest of her leader's answer out, in favor of examining the girl in front of her, as Ruby sat down.

Pyrrha had gone to Professor Goodwitch after classes on that first day, and told her everything her semblance had picked up about the leader of Team RWBY. At first the professor hadn't believed her, but eventually the Mistralian champion had pushed through enough of her skepticism that the deputy headmaster had agreed to take up the matter with Professor Ozpin.

She had not honestly expected to receive a personal message from the headmaster later that night, stating that he was aware of Ruby's 'situation', as the message had put it, and further, had warned her against discussing it with anyone. When JNPR had been awoken in the middle of the night by a scream, Pyrrha had immediately recognized that it had come from RWBY's room, which had startled her quite badly, but also stirred up her curiosity. Thus, she'd gone to investigate, Jaune tagging along out of worry.

While she had, to an extent, expected Weiss to be the one answering the door, she had not remotely expected the heiress to be bleeding from her cheek, seemingly without a care. Nor did she believe the other girl's insistence that it was an accident. Pyrrha was convinced it had something to do with Ruby, and possibly to do with the scream, as she didn't buy the movie explanation in the slightest.

Of course, she was a bit too polite to directly ask what had happened, even though the question had been eating at her. She needed to know. If she had one flaw, it was her curiosity. Usually it was a restrained flaw, but restrained didn't mean non-existent, after all.

"See something you like?" Ruby's teasing voice interrupted her thoughts, and she blinked several times.

"I, uh- Huh?" Pyrrha's response was less than coherent.  _Really need more sleep… My thoughts went trailing off, there._

"You were staring." The robot-girl shrugged, with a small grin. "It is fine, stare all you wish, I am used to stares." She stated, casually. "Of course, usually they are not from so close a range…"

Pyrrha paused for a moment as her tired mind put together Ruby's statements, then she blushed a deep scarlet, grasping the other girl's meaning.

Ruby chuckled lightly, and Yang burst out with giggles from where she sat, next to her leader.

"Of course," Ruby continued, "I must turn down any invitation you may give, as I cannot return your interest. I am, after all… Taken, I believe the word is."

Now Yang was struggling to contain full on laughter, while Nora had begun to giggle from Jaune's other side, as Jaune, Blake, and Weiss gave her identical looks of confusion.

"You never mentioned that before." Weiss noted, to which Ruby shrugged.

"It never came up."

"Do your… Does he? She? Know about…" Blake trailed off, tapping the back of her right hand with the fingers of her left.

Ruby sighed.

"Yes, she knows." The leader of RWBY noted with minor annoyance. "And I thought we agreed not to speak of that outside ourselves?" Her voice became sharp.  _Speak of what? Is it that Ruby's a robot-girl? Or something else? Something she did, perhaps?_

"Uhh, what?" Jaune tilted his head in confusion.

"Private matter. It does not concern you. Or rather, should not concern you." The robot-girl half-glared at Pyrrha as she spoke. The Mistralian champion froze as that cold, silver-eyed gaze bored into her own green eyes.

_Why is she looking at me? Does she know what my semblance is? Does she know that I know she's a robot-girl?_

"Ruby?" Jaune seemed confused at her sudden hostility, even more so that it was directed at Pyrrha.

"You felt it, didn't you?" She asked the robot-girl.  _She has reacted to my semblance before…_

"Yes. Now, please stop." Ruby's tone implied that her statement was not a request. Pyrrha ignored it, and continued her questioning.

"How did you feel it? Normally, no one can feel my semblance. Why can you?"

Ruby's expression didn't change.

"Irrelevant. And even if I felt like telling, I am not actually allowed to. Suffice to say, I can, and that is the main point. So I will know if you pass that… Invasive field over me again."

Pyrrha became quite worried at that statement.  _Not only can you tell my semblance is being activated and focused on you, you can tell what it does?_

Next to her, Jaune seemed to be able to tell something was seriously wrong with the situation, as he leaned over and put his hands on the table between Pyrrha and Ruby.

"Look, I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but, uh, I'm sure it's not that serious, right? We can solve this, uh, dispute? If this is one, we can solve it, right?"

Ruby closed her eyes and sighed.

"My apologies." Her eyes opened again, her expression still completely neutral. "Where I am from, your using your semblance on others like that without their permission, it is a rather large breach of privacy."  _Oh._

"I'm sorry!" Pyrrha apologized, shrinking in her chair slightly, embarrassed. "I didn't know!"

Ruby sighed again, and shook her head.

"I did not expect you to. I just… What you have detected with your semblance, it is something I am a bit sensitive about, right now, at least. I would appreciate it if you were to not mention it to anyone."  _I can understand that._

"I can do that. Again, sorry."

"It is fine. Danke, Fräulein Nikos."  _Huh?_

"What does that mean?" Jaune asked before Pyrrha could. "Also, what're you two even really talking about?"

"A literal translation is 'thank you, miss Nikos', and Ruby did just ask Pyrrha not to talk about it…" Yang spoke up again, trailing off at the end her sentence. "And she was talking in Belkan, before you ask."

"Belkan?" Ren asked this time, speaking for the first time since Team RWBY had entered the restaurant.  _And Nora's been surprisingly quiet…_

Ruby sighed, yet again, before speaking.

"Belkan is my native language. Well, one of the two." She shook her head. "Now, I think we have been talking about me a bit much-"

"Are you a magical girl?" Nora abruptly asked, interrupting the other girl. Everyone present turned to look at the redhead, baffled. "Well, you act like one!" She said defensively, crossing her arms.

"Nicht ganz. Ich bin ein Ritter. Schließen Sie, jedoch."

Now Team JNPR turned to look at Ruby, then Yang, while team RWBY continued to regard Nora with confusion.

"I'm not translating." The blonde brawler put up her hands in a half shrug. "I barely know enough to translate what she said earlier." Now JNPR turned to Ruby, who crossed her arms over her chest.

"Not translating." She said, with a small, teasing grin. "Besides, it's not too important. And, how do I act like a magical girl?" She directed this question towards the smaller of the redheads at JNPR's table.

"Well…"

…

…

{End, Chapter 6}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please let me know how you think this was!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, everyone, so sorry to make you wait so long!  
> Please enjoy!

"Students, as you can see, Mr. Arc's Aura has now dropped into the red." Professor Goodwitch's voice brought Ruby's attention back to the present, from the novel she had pulled up on her scroll.

She, along with half of the first-year students at Beacon Academy, were seated in a set of audience seats within Beacon's main combat training room, for the class taught by the Deputy Headmaster; 'Introduction to Higher-Level Combat'. This class, as far as Ruby could ascertain, mainly involved organized dueling, with the Professor pointing out flaws and strengths in the students' techniques.

_Match over all ready? Jaune really needs some work on his combat skills… Perhaps I can get Pyrrha to assist him? After all, my handful of sword techniques aren't used with a shield, or used in ground-based combat at all, for that matter. Plus, Rosenkreuz's Zweihander Configuration is almost as large as I am..._

The Knight shrugged off her thoughts, and listened to the deputy headmistress of Beacon, in case she said something important.

"In a tournament-styled duel, this would indicate that Jaune is no longer fit for battle, and that the official may call the match." The professor turned to the prone student she'd just been talking about. "Mr. Arc, it's been weeks now. Please try to refer to your scroll during combat. Gauging your Aura will help you decide when it's appropriate to attack, or when it is better to move to a more... Defensive strategy. We wouldn't want you to be gobbled up by a beowulf, now, would we?"

"Speak for yourself." Jaune's brute of an opponent, a boy by the name of 'Cardin Winchester', according to the scoreboard, sneered a response to the professor, giving the other student a contemptuous look. His team, a bunch of similar individuals to himself, started guffawing lightly.

_I wonder why the Professor doesn't bother even scolding him for his disrespect? Does she just not care?_

Professor Goodwitch did, at least, give the boy a stern glance, before turning back to the rest of the class.

"Now, given how short Ms. Schnee's match ran, we still have time for one more match. Who would like to volunteer?"

"I will." Ruby stood.  _Perhaps a demonstration is in order._

"Very well, Ms. Nakajima. Who would you like to be your opponent?" Ruby gave a very slight smile, turning in the direction of the three members of Team CRDL who were still in the stands.

"I would like to fight Team CDRL." She announced, as her grin turned predatory.

"Who in particular?'' Goodwitch asked.

"All of them who accept my challenge." The Knight stated, turning back to the professor.

Team CDRL as a whole laughed briefly, before all three in the stands stood up.

"Sure, we'll beat on ya, 'till you start cryin'!" One of them, Ruby didn't bother trying to remember his name, spoke for his fellows.

Glynda was silent for a moment, before speaking again.

"Are you sure, Ms. Nakajima? That is a three-on-one fight."

Ruby, in turn, simply shrugged.

"I have faced far worse odds. Besides, these three, barely qualify as a single real opponent together. Why should I make our duel even more of a farce than it will already be?"

"Hey, what're you-" One of the boys started to speak, outrage clear in his voice, before Ruby cut him off.

"If you wish to prove otherwise, then do so on the battlefield. If you can."

With that, she turned, and walked off the stage, into the locker room.

…

…

"Still one chance to back out!" One of the boys from CDRL taunted Ruby as she stood opposite from the other three students. He hefted his rifle-halberd up to his grey-armored shoulder as he spoke.

Ruby simply lifted the Formula Cannon, closed into a lance.

"Now, all of you know the rules, so I shouldn't need to repeat them for the third time today. Begin!" Professor Goodwitch's voice rang out within the arena, and Ruby shot forwards, Formula Cannon held behind her as she ran.

Part of her took notice of the scoreboard, checking both her her opponent's displayed information, as well as her own.

Ruby had never gone through the 'Aura Unlocking' process, recognizing that it for what it was; a very crude way of activating Inherent Magic and a rudimentary mana barrier field for personal protection. As a Knight, she had significantly more effective spells that the maximum one could achieve with 'Aura', and thus such a process was completely pointless, even when 'fitting in' with the locals.

This had, however, resulted in a bit of a problem. The systems used to measure 'Aura' strength would consistently read zero when used on her, blocking her from quite a few things within the Beacon curriculum as a result. Out of annoyance at this, she'd asked Rosenkreuz to come up with a solution. What her Device had come up with was to modify her scroll's systems so that it would read the strength of her Knight's Clothing or Knight's Armor as her 'Aura' level, or barrier level, to use proper magical terminology.

_Focus._

" _Rosenkreuz, link to the scoreboard, tell me when each's barrier level reaches fifty percent."_

" _Will do, master."_

The first of Team CRDL, the rifle-halberd wielder, grinned as she approached, and raised his weapon, drawing it behind himself, winding up for a swing.

Ruby shifted herself into a slide as he swung, resulting in the blade passing harmlessly over her. Immediately, she brought up the Formula Cannon, driving its tip into his chest with all the force her augmented strength as a combat cyborg granted her, adding to the momentum from her run. The boy was launched backwards by the force, his feet leaving the ground. Ruby heard noises of surprise from the assembled students.

" _Target barrier level at seventeen percent. Additional information suggests target possesses a normal strength barrier for his skill level. I suggest a recalculation of used strength."_

" _Noted."_

The next boy, dressed in bronze armor and wielding a gunsword, charged her as she kicked up from her slide. The Knight simply brought the Formula Cannon around to the right side of his head, bashing him with the side of the closed lance-barrel.

The boy staggered back, and she slammed her weapon into the other side of his head, before repeating the attack a third time, into his chest, sending him flying, much as she had his friend a few seconds ago.

" _Target barrier at eighteen percent. Again, I suggest a recalculation of strength used, your current level appears to be considered anomalous."_

" _I'm not trying to fit in like that. The more dangerous I appear, the better. I am a Knight, not some innocent Bureau Mage."_

" _You sound like Signum."_

The last boy looked at his two fellows, both struggling to rise from the impacts, before turning his gaze to Ruby, slowly advancing towards him. The look of smugness he'd had earlier was no longer apparent, now nervousness was his main look. Still, he raised his twin daggers to meet her.

Ruby swung the Formula Cannon around, catching the tip on the back of one of his hands, unbalancing him, before executing a series of swift swipes while advancing forwards. Each individual blow was rather weak by Ruby's standards, but they each did noticeable damage to his barrier, and kept him off balance.

" _Target barrier level at fifty-forty-thirty percent, master."_ Rosenkreuz spoke up in the middle of her rapid-fire combo of strikes, having to correct herself with every blow. Ruby acknowledged Rosenkreuz's statement by stopping her rapid-fire series of blows, stepping back, and sliding the Formula Cannon onto her back. She then launched a quick one-two pair of punches into his face.

The boy fell backwards onto the floor.

" _Target barrier level at twenty percent, master."_

Ruby stepped back again, and turned to leave.

After a second of seemingly stunned silence, Professor Goodwitch began her usual speech to the assembled students.  _She says the exact same thing every time, only changing the names she says and her comment afterward._

"Students, as you can see, Mr. Bronzewing's, Mr. Thrush's, and Mr. Lark's Auras have all dropped into the red. In a tournament-styled duel, this would indicate that the three are no longer fit for battle, and that the official may call the match." She turned to Ruby. "Well done, Ms. Nakajima. A perfect match is quite a rarity, especially a three-on-one."  _Mrs. Nakajima, but this is not the time or place._

"Thank you, Professor." Ruby inclined her head in acknowledgement. The deputy headmistress returned the gesture, before she turned back to the assembled students.

"Remember, everyone, the Vytal Festival is only a few months away. It won't be long before students from the other kingdoms start arriving in Vale, so keep practicing! Those who choose to compete in the combat tournament will be representing all of Vale!"

…

…

"So! There we were, in the middle of the night…" Nora Valkyrie's voice pulled Ruby back into the present around her.

"It was day." Lie Ren tiredly corrected the boisterous redhead.

"We were surrounded by Ursai…"

"They were Beowulves."  _You sound like you've had to say this before..._

"Dozens of them!" The redhead jumped up from their seat, slamming their hands into the table around which RWBY and JNPR sat. Of the members of JNPR, Nora was in the middle of telling the others about a recurring dream of theirs, Ren was correcting them- _Though how he knows the contents of their dream is a rather large question of mine-_ Pyrrha was listening politely, and Jaune was spacing out as he picked at his food.

Of RWBY, Yang and Weiss were listening, Blake was reading, and Ruby was having a telepathic conversation with Vita, who had somehow managed to get drunk. How a mana-based lifeform who usually wasn't simulating the human body beneath the skin managed to become intoxicated was a complete mystery to Ruby.

Ruby had first managed to re-establish reliable telepathic contact with the other five of Hayate's Knights several weeks ago, when she had established her link to one of her two Lords, though for most of that time, the contact had been weak and unreliable. Mistress Hayate herself was only rarely in telepathic contact with Ruby, being a bit busy.

As things had turned out, the moment the Archon's signal had been lost, Admiral Haralown had sent a high-priority transmission to the TSAB's Central Headquarters, resulting in a Search and Rescue mission being put together immediately. The result of that was that Mistress Hayate's ship, the LS-Class Battleship Wolfram, was now in low orbit over Remnant. According to Shamal, Hayate had practically bullied the Admiralty into giving her command of the ship and mission.

Ruby herself had massively overestimated the scale of the Marriage attacks, as well as the timeframe. Around the same time that she had slammed the Archon into Remnant, the crisis was about over. The Forwards of Riot Force Six and the N2R Team had been in the process of securing the Mariage's progenitor/King, Ixveria, who, as it turned out, was just a girl turned into a living weapon. Another hideous legacy of the Warring Ages, in Ruby's opinion.

She was however, delighted to know that it had been her Wife and Sisters-in-Law who had resolved the whole mess.

Ruby herself had also received some notability on Mid-Childa, as a brave Saint Church Knight who had sacrificed herself to ensure that her ship wouldn't fall into the Mariage's hands. That had nearly been the case, she had to admit, though she did not exactly expect to get medaled for it, as she apparently had been.

On that regard, however, Mistress Hayate had forbidden the other five Knights from telling Ruby precisely which medal she had been awarded. Ruby actually agreed with this decision, for the reason why Hayate had made it; Hayate wanted Ruby to hear about it from Cinque directly, who had been given the medal in her place, as it had been awarded 'posthumously'. Evidently, her survival had not been expected. A funeral had even been held, though the Nakajimas, the Takamachis as well as Hayate and her Knights had insisted that she was still alive. The Scagleitti family had apparently been evenly split on the subject. Jail and Uno were evidently quite insistent that Ruby was too hard to kill to die in such an event, while Tre was, as usual, pessimistic on the outcome. The rest were somewhere in between.

" _Yooouuu… Got realalyyyy quuiet. 'S goin' onn?"_ Vita's telepathic voice pulled her from her thoughts back into her conversation.

" _Just thinking. Also, question, how exactly did you get drunk in the first place?"_

" _Wiith wiiiinee. Howw elllse?"_

" _That doesn't answer my question in the slightest. And Vita?"_

" _Yeees?"_

" _Please go sober up."_

" _Whyyy?"_

" _Because in your rambling, you've shared details about things I did not need to know."_

" _Like whaat?"_

" _I have no need to know how soft Mistress Hayate's breasts are, for one."_

" _But theyy'ree reeeeaaaallllyyy sooofffft! Liike piiloowsses…"_

" _That's it. Shamal!"_

" _Hmm?"_ The Wolkenritter Ruby had called for now entered the conversation.

" _Please do me a favor, and put Vita to bed. She's manage to intoxicate herself."_

" _I'm aware. I've been listening. I'm also the one who gave her the wine~"_

" _Shamal. Why."_

" _Because she needed to relax a little. She's been practically running herself ragged trying to find a way down to the surface so we can bring you home that doesn't breach secrecy."_

" _I didn't know."_ Now Ruby felt a little guilty.

" _I know you didn't. Vita's like that, she'll work so hard for someone, and not tell them she's doing it. And I think she still feels a little guilty for what we did to you. I know I do."_ Shamal confessed.

" _We've had this conversation before. You have no reason to feel guilty. I don't mind what happened to me."_

" _I know that! But we didn't give you a choice before-"_

" _Shamal. I've told you I don't blame you. You had no choice. You have nothing to feel you need to apologize for. Forgive yourself already!"_

" _Isn't that what Vivio told you?"_ Ruby winced at Shamal's words.

" _That's different. How long did it take you to heal the damage I inflicted on her majesty?"_

" _No too long, actually. And she likes the scars, she asked me to leave the ones across her face. Not sure why, actually."_

" _That just makes me feel worse…"_

" _Now who's the one who needs to stop feeling guilty for something they've been forgiven for?"_

" _I… Heh. Fine. I recognize my own hypocrisy, here."_

" _ **Is Ruby being self-deprecating again?"**_ Hayate now entered the conversation.  _ **"And is there a reason Vita is giggling and giving herself a marshmallow hell with my boobs?"**_

" _Yes, she is, and Vita's drunk, Mistress."_ Shamal answered their very confused Lord's question.

" _ **No need to do that, Ruby. And Shamal?"**_

" _Yes, Mistress?"_

Ruby didn't hear her Lord's next sentence, as someone grabbed her shoulder and shook her a bit, pulling her attention for a moment.

"What?" Her voice came out a bit angry.

"Sorry. Just checking to see it you were still awake. You kinda zoned out there a bit." Yang sounded at least vaguely apologetic.

Ruby closed her eyes and sighed, though before she could speak, another voice interrupted her.

"Ow! That hurts, please, stop!"

Ruby opened her eyes, and glanced in the direction of the voice, before sighing, and standing.

Team CDRL had apparently decided to cheer themselves up from their defeat by bullying another student. More specifically, a rabbit faunus Ruby recognized, who had helped her a bit with her written Valian earlier in the school year. Cardin was tugging on one of the faunus girl's rabbit ears, his team guffawing around him and at the girl.

"I will be right back." She muttered to the others, and set off in the direction of Velvet Scarlatina and Team CDRL.

" _ **Ruby? What's going on? You just got a bit angry all of a sudden."**_ Hayate's voice cut into Ruby's thoughts.

Thanks to her link to Hayate, Ruby's emotions could be felt by her Lord, if she wish to know. It was the same of all of the Knights, and they could all feel each other, as well. The Knights' link was quite an amazing thing.

" _Just about to go deal with a few bullies at this academy. They all seem to require more of a lesson than has already been taught."_

" _ **Ah. Well, have fun, don't do anything that would get you in too much trouble, and if you do, don't get cau-ahh, cold hands, cold hands! Gotta go, bye!"**_ And with that, her Lord's presence receded.  _I can guess what that was about._

Ruby shook her head slightly to clear it of her thoughts, before she arrived at the table with CDRL and Velvet.

"What do you think you are doing, Cardinal?" The Knight demanded as she neared the five students.

"What's it to you? Screw off." Cardin Winchester didn't even turn to look at her, continuing to tug on Velvet's ear. One of the other students turned to see who was approaching, and his face slipped into mild fear when he noticed that Ruby was the one who had spoken.

"Hey, boss?" He said, nervously, before Ruby reached out, locking one hand around Cardin's wrist, and the other around the back of his neck. She pulled him downwards by both, the pressure on his wrist forcing him to let Velvet's ear go, and the pressure on the back of his neck dragging him downwards so that his own ear was at head height for the combat cyborg girl.

"You will answer when I ask you a question, Winchester." Ruby paused, then slammed his wrist into his own stomach, folding him over his arm with her other hand still locked around his neck, before unceremoniously dumping him onto the floor, letting go as she did so.

One of Cardin's teammates apparently decided that this was the perfect time to attack Ruby, showing that he had far more bravery than intelligence. Ruby wasn't sure whether to approve of his bravery, or be appalled at his stupidity.

She settled for not caring as his fist came around, aimed right at her face. The Knight reached up, caught it, and pulled him closer, into her own fist, which met his face hard enough to put him onto the ground, groaning. A light blow, anything harder from her would have broken his neck, or skull.

The next member of CDRL charged Ruby from behind, though she caught his footsteps quite well with her enhanced senses. She spun around, sidestepping as she did so, took a hold of him by his upper arm with one hand and forearm with the other, and swung him around, into the table on her other side, hard enough to knock over the table.

The last one apparently decided that discretion was the better part of Valor, as his simply helped the boy Ruby had punched in the face to his feet.

Ruby turned to go rejoin her team and JNPR, who were watching her intently, most with expressions of satisfaction, as if they had enjoyed watching her beat down most of CDRL for the second time in a day.

As she began to walk away, a pair of hands tried to take ahold of her ankle. In response, she gave Cardin a light kick to the stomach, resulting on an 'oof!' and his hands curling inward to himself.

Ruby ignored him, and returned to her team and JNPR, all of whom except Jaune were now grinning. Jaune just looked nervous.

"You didn't break his legs." Nora was the first to speak as Ruby sat down again. They sounded as if they were complaining.  _Did I miss something?_

"And got a bit of an audience." Yang commented. "I think half the cafeteria was watching."

Ruby just shrugged.

"I do not care who was or was not watching." She noted, before turning to Jaune. "You seem nervous. Why? I will not attack you. Not unless you give me reason to."

"It's not you, it's… Them. They'll get even with you somehow." The blonde boy responded, not meeting Ruby's gaze.  _He is not telling the truth. Or at least, not the full truth._

"You worry about me?" Ruby asked, amused, both by how obvious his lie was, and by his excuse. "There is no need. Pity them if they try something."

"That's not what I meant." Jaune replied. "I just… Ah, never mind." He stood up, taking his lunch tray as well.

"Jaune." He glanced back as Ruby said his name. "If you need assistance, do not hesitate to ask."

"Just ask us, Jaune, we'll help." Pyrrha contributed.

"I'll… Keep that in mind." He said, uncertainty clear in his voice, as he left the table.

{End, Chapter 7}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please let me know how you think this was!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I completely failed to notice that the last chapter hadn't posted, but had been saved without posting instead! I'm so sorry!  
> Well, here's the next chapter, so  
> Please Enjoy!

"Yes, prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution, more popularly known as the Faunus War," Professor Oobleck's voice dragged Ruby out of her reading, and she looked up from her scroll just in time to watch the over-caffeinated and thus hyperactive professor flash step to in front of his desk, blocking the paper-and-pin-covered map of Remnant from the class's view, "Humankind was quite, quite adamant about centralizing faunus population in Menagerie." He pointed to said continent on the map with his baton, before flash-stepping around again, ending in the same spot he started. "Now! While this must feel like ancient history to many of you, it is imperative to remember that these are relatively recent events! Why, the repercussions of the uprising can still be seen to this day!"

 _All one has to do is walk down a city street to see that._ Ruby mentally noted, as the green-haired teacher continued to flash step around the room, seemingly at random.

"Now! Have any among you been subjected to discrimination because of your faunus heritage?" Oobleck questioned the students in his class.

Ruby glanced around to see the responses, noting a fair number of hands being raised. Velvet was one, she saw.

" _And of course Blake is still trying to pretend she isn't a cat faunus. Why does she still think no one will see right through such a flimsy disguise as a bow over her cat ears?"_ The knight wondered to Rosenkreuz.

" _I can't say I understand it, myself, Master."_ Her device replied.

"Dreadful, simply dreadful! Remember, students, it is precisely this kind of ignorance that breeds violence!" The professor sounded as if the discrimination personally offended him, before taking a sip of his drink _-coffee, by the smell-_ and continuing. "I mean, I mean, I mean just look at what happened to the White Fang! Now, which one of you young scholars can tell me what many theorize to be the turning point in the third year of the war?" He asked the class, gesturing with one hand at the students gathered in the lecture hall.

"The Battle at Fort Castle, wherein General Lagune manage to commit almost every possible tactical error possible in such a situation, as well as prove that lawyers belong in a courtroom, not on the battlefield, and certainly not in charge of an army." Ruby spoke up, her voice showing her amusement at just how badly said general had screwed up.

"Quite correct, Ms. Nakajima! And, who can tell me his most significant errors?"

 _Mrs._ Ruby thought with minor annoyance.  _Though, correcting him is not a very good idea right now._

She ignored that little gripe, smirked, and raised her hand to in front of her face, ticking up a finger with each point she lifted off.

"Presuming that he could defeat an, admittedly smaller, faunus army that excelled in night engagements in a night engagement, on their home territory.

He then proceeded to increase the magnitude of his error by not committing the full bulk of his troops, keeping most of his elite units, such as the Seventh Light Infantry, in reserve until the battle was already lost.

On top of that, he deployed his forces in a formation more suited for the battles of an earlier era, where such tactics as massed mounted cavalry charges and lines of infantry were the standard. Thus, his army was unprepared, tactically speaking, for the hit-and-run harrying tactics of the faunus.

Continuing, he refused to allow his section commanders the necessary autonomy to react to the changing conditions of the battle, depriving his army of both mobility and responsiveness.

Finally, rather than simply holing up and defending the fort once his second-in-command ignored him and managed to take part of it, he ordered his few remaining troops to leave their defensive lines and engage the bulk of the faunus army on the open field, facing the dawn sunrise, no less.

In all, it is quite hard to see how much more of a failure he could have been as a general. Atop that, do not let me get started on his atrocious personal conduct and lack of regard for the laws and customs of war." Ruby leaned back in her seat, still smirking.  _Ah, military history. Even though it's not my own, it's still fascinating._

"Extremely correct, and well said, Ms. Nakajima! General Lagune was not only a poor military commander, but a war criminal as well! Now, on that particular topic, who can tell me what is considered his most egregious breach of inter-kingdom law set down by the Vytal Treaty?"

"Huh?" Jaune sounded as if he'd just woken up, but his noise of confusion cut Ruby off. Professor Oobleck seemed to take the noise as evidence that Jaune had the answer, judging by the professor's sudden flash step to in front of the blonde swordsman.

"Mr. Arc! Finally contributing to class! This is excellent, excellent! What is the answer?" The professor queried him, while he looked around in helpless confusion.

Ruby's palm met her face.  _You should know better than to sleep in Professor Oobleck's class._

"Uhh… The, uh… Answer, that that one guy did, he, umm…" Jaune adopted an 'oh crap' expression, loudly muttered a very fumbling sentence, and hung his head. "I, uh, I don't know."

Behind him, Cardin Winchester guffawed loudly at his admission.  _Would you please stop reminding everyone that you exist._

Professor Oobleck just looked slightly disappointed, before he flash stepped back to behind his desk.

"Well, it is better to admit when you don't know something, than pretend you do! That said, please see me after class for additional readings, as it is obvious you have not covered the assigned material! Mr. Winchester! Perhaps you know the answer?" The professor called on the still-guffawing student.

"Well, the only thing I can say was illegal was his stupidity. Everything else seems fine to me." Cardin laced his fingers behind his head, and leaned back with a small grin.  _WHAT THE FUCK!?_

Ruby was on her feet in a flash, rounding on him.

"He used chemical weapons on prisoners of war, you dumb fuck! That, in and of itself, is an execution-worthy offense!" The Knight almost-shouted at him, forgetting to speak in Valian in her anger, and slipping into Belkan instead. "What the fuck is wrong with you!?"  _The Sankt Kaiser would turn her head away in shame at such behavior!_

" _Woah, Ruby, calm down! Your emotions just spiked furious, what happened?"_ Vita's voice sounded in the back of her head. She stopped, closed her eyes, and crossed her arms over her chest.

" _Sorry. Asshole here in class just said he's got no problems with racism-driven war crimes. And, yes, it's the one who leads the team I keep having to beat up."_

" _The hell's wrong with him?"_ Vita sounded disgusted. _"Still, he's not worth getting all worked up over, though, from the sound of it."_

" _No, he isn't. Sorry, everyone."_ Ruby apologized.

" _ **It's fine. Slightly startling, but so was Vita's behavior earlier."**_ Amusement tinged Hayate's 'voice'.

" _I regret nothing!"_

Ruby took a deep breath, and opened her eyes again, allowing the telepathic conversation to bleed into the background.

Cardin was no longer leaning back casually, but was now on his feet himself, his face red with anger, fists clenched at his sides. Even if he hadn't understood her insult, or anything she'd said at all, her tone had conveyed the point well enough.

"And who's got a problem if a bunch of-" He didn't get a chance to complete his sentence, as Professor Oobleck interrupted him.

"Mr. Winchester. That's enough." The professor flash-stepped to between the two. "You will keep your bigotry in check in my class, is that clear?" His voice was calm, for once, and almost glacial.

"Yes, professor." Cardin still looked absolutely furious, but he unclenched his fists, and crossed his arms, before pointedly turning and taking his seat again.

"You will see me after class. And Ms. Nakajima? Please try to keep calm, and stick to Valian!" Oobleck's voice returned to its normal jubilant, hyperactive tone.

Ruby nodded as the professor flash stepped to the front of the room again.

"I will try." She took her seat again.  _Kaiser, please give me the strength to not throttle the idiot._

"Now, then! Moving on!"

…

…

"You go on ahead. I'll wait for Jaune." Pyrrha told the others as Teams RWBY and JNPR exited the classroom.

"I will wait with you." Ruby stated as she leaned against the outside of the doorframe, closing her eyes. Rosenkreuz obliged a quick mental command, and the latest of her device's analyses on potential workarounds for Remnant's AMF flashed through her thoughts.

"Yes?" She asked out loud after a few seconds, practically feeling the Mystralian Champion's gaze, as five sets of footsteps walked away.

"Nothing, nothing. Sorry." At Pyrrha's hasty apology, Ruby opened one eye and glanced her way.

"If you have something to say, say it. If you have something to ask, ask it. I do not bite." Ruby smiled slightly.  _Also sort of amusing, that phrase is almost unchanged across the different cultures of the worlds, within and without Administrated Space._

"Well… Can we talk later? Alone?" Pyrrha now sounded, and looked, apprehensive.

"Okay?" Ruby opened her other eye, meeting the other girl's gaze. There was a light blush on Pyrrha's face. "What about?"

"Not here. I just, wanted to talk?" She said, tilting her head slightly and glancing away, as if embarrassed.

The Knight blinked once. Then twice. Then a green-and-white blur raced past the two, and Jaune followed said blur out into the hallway, Cardin behind him.

Ruby glanced back at Pyrrha, turning away when she heard the sound of someone falling and an "Ow" from Jaune.

Cardin laughed, and walked away from where Jaune half-sat on the floor.

Ruby scowled at the retreating student, making a mental note to take up the topic of bullying with Ozpin the next meeting.  _Patience is a virtue, but I am almost out of it._

"You know, I really will break his legs." Pyrrha commented, pulling Jaune to his feet as Ruby stepped away from the doorframe. The boy sighed softly.

Pyrrha seemed to notice this, then looked as if she'd come up with the solution to a problem. "I have an idea! Here, come with me!" With that, she started to pull Jaune down the hallway. Ruby followed.

After a few minutes, they came to a rooftop overlooking the Beacon Courtyard, the Beacon Tower dead-center of the view. It was late enough the sky had grown dark, and clouds barely allowed the moonlight to show through.

" _Quite beautiful here."_

" _Indeed. Want me to take a picture?"_ Rosenkreuz asked.

" _Please do."_

Jaune's voice sounded to her left, and she glanced over, to where Jaune and Pyrrha stood, at the edge of the roof.

"Pyrrha, I know I'm going through a hard time right now, but I'm not that depressed." He glanced over the edge of the roof as he spoke.

Ruby was moving before the words registered. Her hand lashed out, taking rough hold of the back of his collar, before she spun around, hurling June into the center of the roof, where he landed on all fours.

"Not happening." She declared.

"I wasn't gonna in the first place." Jaune said, slowly standing. "I can always be a farmer or something…"

Ruby glanced over at Pyrrha, opening her mouth to give the Champion a severe verbal lashing, but stopped when she saw the look of guilt and mild horror on her face.

"That-that's not why I brought you up here!" Her face flushed. "Jaune, I know you're having a difficult time in class and that you're still not the strongest of fighters, so… I want to help you! We can train up here after class where no one can bother us!" She sounded quite enthused with her idea, Ruby noted, as the two of them approached Jaune.

"You think I need help?" Jaune asked, sounding quite offended. Pyrrha opened her mouth to reply, before Ruby pre-empted her.

"Yes." The Knight bluntly stated. "You do. Your stance and sense of timing are horrible, you have no form in combat, and you seem to have no real idea how to use a shield or sword. Your only asset in single combat is your physical strength." She crossed her arms, ignoring the shocked expression on Pyrrha's face and the look of depressed hurt on Jaune's. "You are worse at personal combat than my sister Uno."

"That's enough, Ruby." Pyrrha tried to interrupt. Ruby continued to ignore her.

"You need an instructor. Someone to teach you the art of battle." Ruby nodded at the Mystralian Champion. "Fraulein Pyrrha has offered her assistance in doing so. I personally would recommend taking her up on the offer." Glancing at the expression on Jaune's face, she continued. "Do not think that it is somehow dishonorable to recognize one's own failings and to request help when it is required. I will admit, there are still aspects of combat I struggle with. I am supremely lucky I have had such good instructors myself, and I am still learning from them."

"Ruby's right about that, Jaune! Everybody needs a little push from time to time, it doesn't make you any different from the rest of us. You made it to Beacon! That speaks volumes of what you're capable of!" Pyrrha added as Ruby finished.

"Easy for you two to say. You actually belong here." Jaune didn't raise his gaze from his feet as he spoke.

"You say that as if you do not belong at Beacon." Ruby observed.

"And that's a terrible thing to say, Jaune! You belong here, too!" Pyrrha again added to the end of Ruby's statement.

"No, I don't. I wasn't really accepted into Beacon…" Jaune said, sighing and turning away from the other two.

"What do you mean?" Pyrrha asked the boy, as Ruby just sighed and crossed her arms.

"I mean I didn't go to combat school, I didn't pass any tests, I didn't earn my spot at this Academy!" He turned back to the Champion and the Knight. "I lied! I got my hands on some fake transcripts, and I lied!" His hands had balled into fists as his voice became higher and higher with every word.

"Now, tell me something actually relevant, please." Ruby interrupted him. "So you used fake transcripts. So what? Why should that matter at all? You successfully passed the entrance exam. That should be all that matters on that front."

"What?" Jaune and Pyrrha both looked over at Ruby, shock the dominant emotion on both faces.

"I did not go through any of the Four Kingdoms' approved combat schools. I never studied at any of the Academies. I have no transcripts at all. Kaiser, I do not have any records of my existence at all beyond a few months ago." She told the two.

"You still earned your place here!" Jaune responded, starting to get angry. "I've seen you beat everyone you've fought! You're here because you're actually good at this!"

"Because I learned how, by admitting what I do not know and taking steps to correct it. I did not simply wake up one day with these skills, I was not just born with them."  _Sort of._  "I trained for several years under Ritter Vita, Lady Takamachi, and my father. The three of them can be credited with practically all of the combat skills I have.

And that is my point, Jaune Arc. You are not expected to be an Ace immediately. You are, however, expected to learn. Pyrrha has offered you the opportunity to train. Most of the students here would be supremely jealous of that, if her reputation of being 'The Invincible Girl' and the 'Champion of Mystral' are even close to accurate. Given what I have seen, the reputation is well deserved.

In short, my advice to you is this: take her up on her offer. Let her help you." Ruby finished her little speech and sighed, quietly. Pyrrha looked impressed with Ruby, but Jaune just turned away for a moment, before turning back, anger clear on his face.

"I don't want help, I don't want to be the damsel in distress! I want to be the hero! My father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather were all warriors! They were all heroes! I want to be one too, I'm just not good enough! I'm tired of being the lovable idiot, stuck in the tree while his friends fight for their lives! Don't you understand? If I can't do this on my own, then what good am I!?"

Ruby sighed.  _He's too stuck in this mindset for right now. He's not really listening, just fixating onto a handful of things and using those to justify his current feeling of inferiority._

The Knight sighed again, as Pyrrha reached out towards him, as if to console him.

"Just… Leave me alone. Okay?" Jaune leaned away from Pyrrha's hand.

"If that's what you think is best... " Pyrrha trailed off, looking completely dejected.

Ruby tapped her on the shoulder and gestured to the door. Pyrrha nodded, and left the rooftop with Ruby.

As she reached the door back into the building, Ruby paused, turning back to glance at Jaune.

"Think on what we said. Pyrrha and I did not speak for our own benefit." With that, she slipped through the door, where the Mystralian Champion was waiting for her.

"Well, that could have gone better." The Knight sighed, and turned her attention to Pyrrha. "You said earlier that you wanted to talk with me?"

…

...

{End, Chapter 8}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please let me know how you think this was!  
> Also, if you have suggestions on potential ships for this story, please leave a comment telling me!  
> Here's all I have for the major characters right now:  
> Ruby/Cinque  
> Jaune/Pyrrha  
> Ren/Nora  
> Hayate/SPOILERS/Vita/Shamal/Signum (side Signum/Agito)  
> Nanoha/Fate  
> One-sided Glynda/Ozpin from Glynda's half  
> Past "Summer"/Raven/Taiyang/Qrow  
> Current Taiyang/Qrow


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I forgot to put this up!

"You said earlier that you wanted to talk with me?" Ruby asked Pyrrha, as the two walked through the hallways of Beacon Academy, leaving the rooftop above the main first-year's classroom/lecture hall block, and a very upset (and obstinate on not accepting assistance) Jaune Arc on said roof.

"I did, but… That can wait. I'm a bit more worried about Jaune right now." The Mystralian Champion admitted. "Though, I did want to ask…" She trailed off for a moment. "You said back there," She spoke up again after her and Ruby had walked a few meters, "That there's no records of your existence before a few months ago? What did you mean by that?"  _I should not have said that._

"I meant…" Ruby trailed off, coming to a halt and glancing up and down the hall. No one else was visible, even to her enhanced senses. "This does not go further than the two of us, understood?"

"Okay…" Pyrrha halted too, and was looking at the Knight with an expression of curiosity.

" _ **Ruby, when you've got a minute, let me know. Vita's suggested something, and I want your opinion on it."**_ Hayate's voice spoke in the back of Ruby's consciousness.

"As far as the records of the four Kingdoms are concerned, I did not exist before approximately six months ago. Before then, there is nothing indicating my existence. Anything that predates that is a backdated fabrication."  _"I will, Mistress."_

"What? Why?" The other girl was genuinely confused, Ruby could see that quite plainly on her face.

" _ **That just sounds wrong when it's you who says it. You are way too young to be calling me Mistress..."**_

"My apologies, but that is classified." Ruby told Pyrrha, before turning and resuming her walk back to the dorms, allowing the conversation with Hayate to fade out for the moment.

"Is it related to the fact that you're a robot girl?" Pyrrha asked, stepping up to her side and keeping pace easily.  _I was hoping to not have this conversation until much later._

Ruby stopped again, turning to look Pyrrha in the eyes.

"Two things. One, I am a cyborg, not a 'robot girl'." _Though, at this point, the difference is mainly academic._  "Two; that fact is classified as well." Pyrrha's expression cycled through a mix of emotions before a voice interrupted them.

"What's going on here?" Yang asked, her voice echoing in the empty hall. Ruby glanced over, noting that she was still halfway down the corridor, and thus unlikely to have overheard anything.

"Oh, hello, Yang. We were just talking-" Pyrrha began, before Ruby cut her off.

"Pyrrha knows about my cybernetics, but came to the wrong conclusion. Evidently she was under the impression that I'm a gynoid." Ruby told Yang, switching to Mid-Childan for the second sentence. "Also, Jaune has declared that he didn't get into Beacon legitimately."

"Yeah, I already guessed that about him." The blonde brawler stated, also in Mid-Childan, as she came to lean up against the wall nearby, arms crossed. "And you told me that she probably knew about your cybernetics, too."

Pyrrha just looked back and forth between the two, as they spoke a language she wouldn't have heard before, except from the two now speaking it.

"Umm… Excuse me?" The Mystralian Champion, tall and impressive as she was, proved that she could still appear very meek when she wanted to. "What are you two…?" She trailed off as both Ruby and Yang turned to her.

The blonde brawler glanced at Ruby, one eyebrow raised in an unspoken question. Ruby shook her head before vocalizing her response.  _Don't think I didn't hear that… Or do you not care?_

"No, we're not telling her. At this point, it's simply not worth the risk."  _I am quite glad Rosenkreuz and I taught you Mid-Childan._

"Fair enough." Yang nodded. "I can't say I like leaving people in the dark, but with secrets like the ones surrounding you… I can understand why. Especially given what I've seen from your history. And technology."

"Quite." With a glance over at the thoroughly bewildered Pyrrha, Ruby switched back to Valian. "My apologies, Fraulein Nikos, but some topics of conversation are best had in a… Different language, when one is concerned about eavesdroppers. Of course, this particular eavesdropper is not one I think I need to be overly concerned with." She raised her voice slightly as she spoke, and said eavesdropper rounded the corner behind Yang. Pyrrha stiffened up as the Headmaster of Beacon Academy came into view.

"My apologies, I can't say I intended to eavesdrop. I was simply on my way to speak with Peter-Professor Port." Ozpin corrected himself, gesturing slightly with his ever-present mug. _I can smell the hot chocolate from over here. And that explains why you weren't even trying to be quiet._

Ruby chuffed lightly in amusement. "Yang and I have discussed nothing you do not already know. Though, I do have a question. Jaune has forged transcripts, is that a problem?" She asked, ignoring Pyrrha shooting her a look of horror and betrayal.

"No." Ozpin casually answered, taking a brief sip from his mug, gesturing slightly with his cane. "He passed the entrance exam, after all."

Pyrrha's expression was one of immense relief, mixed with disbelief."You, you mean?"

"I'd already figured out that his transcripts were forged before the school year started, but I had full confidence that he would complete Initiation. And he did, didn't he?" The elder Knight asked, rhetorically.

"You're not- you're not angry?" The mystralian champion still seemed utterly bewildered.

"Not really, no." Ozpin shrugged lightly. "Jaune had a problem and found a solution. That shows problem-solving skills and initiative, and that he'd try at all also speaks to his bravery. He could have been a bit better in his selection of forgers, but for that I don't blame him."

Pyrrha looked utterly relieved at that.

"Thank you, Professor. I was… Quite worried about him." Pyrrha confessed, to the surprise of no one in the hallway.

"It is only natural to be worried about one's friends." Ozpin observed. "Now, if you will excuse me, I do need to meet with Port. Have a good evening, you three." With that, Ozpin left down the hall in the direction of Professor Port's classroom.

"He's not mad…" Pyrrha trailed off, slight disbelief still evident in her voice.

"Well, that does sound like Ozpin; skirting or outright ignoring the rules if it makes for a more desirable result." Ruby offhandedly noted.  _"Shamal, I take back what I said earlier. You were dead-on."_

…

…

"Well, you have been rather scarce as of lately. Where have you been the last week?" Ruby asked Jaune as she cornered him outside his dorm room, still dressed in his armor.

"Oh, uh, hi, Ruby." Jaune replied, rather than answer, which Ruby proceeded to comment on as she doffed the hood of her habit.

"That is not an answer. Where have you been?" The Knight repeated.

"I, uhh…" He trailed off briefly, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, before hanging his head and replying. "I messed up. Cardin heard the thing on the roof, and now he's got me on a leash, and Pyrrha won't talk to me, and…" Jaune trailed off again, leaning against the door to his team's dorm room, before he sighed. "I'm starting to think coming to this school was a bad idea. I'm a failure." The blonde slid down the door, ending up on the floor.

"That is untrue, and you know it." Ruby told him.

"I've screwed up everything I've done here." He countered.

"Incorrect." She replied.

"I fail at everything I try here."

"You are still learning."

"I can't even do that right." Jaune had rearranged himself into a sitting position on the floor as they spoke.

_What would Nanoha do? No, beating the depression out of him isn't an option right now… What would Vita do? Ha. I don't even have to ask her that._

…

Jaune was absolutely confident that this was all a horrible idea. Oh, sure, attending Beacon Academy had sounded all well and good in his head, but he'd had to get his hands on some not-inexpensive forged transcripts to do so, and he'd neglected to tell his family where he was going or even that he'd left, instead sneaking out in the night, stealing his grandfather's sword and shield as he did so.

And now it was all falling apart. He was almost flunking most of his classes, his team was only spared from being the worst in the year by the virtue of Pyrrha's skill, and now the school bully knew about his fake transcripts, which would get him expelled for sure if any of the professors learned about it, thus making him the guy's gofer. And on top of it all, he'd angered the only person who might be able to help him. Sure, Ruby might be helpful, but he didn't see any real way the nun could do anything, or even see any real reason for her to try.

He sighed again, waiting for her to leave.

So he was completely taken by surprise when, instead of leaving, she responded by adopting a tone more associated with military drill sergeants, though her strange accent stayed.

"On your feet!" She barked at him, and he found himself responding automatically, standing up straight before it even occurred to him to think about it.  _The heck?_

The nun put her hands on her hips, looked him up and down once, before locking gazes with him as she stared, bewildered in her sudden change in behavior from gentle-but-firm church girl to military trainer.

"Now, then! Herr Arc! What did I tell you at the beginning of this week!?" She demanded. Jaune stared down at her, befuddled, before replying.  _Herr?_

"That I'm bad at fighting?"

"Wrong!" She emphasized the word by jabbing him in the breastplate with a gloved finger. "I told you that you need training! That you are not expected to be an ace immediately! And yet! You are acting as it the fact you have not become one in a few short months is a sign that you should not even try!" She jabbed his breastplate again. "And that is your mistake! Herr Arc! You keep comparing yourself negatively to your father and grandfather! How long did they train!?"  _This is utterly weird._

"Umm, several years?" He hesitantly responded.

"Exactly!" Ruby nodded sharply, managing to avoid losing eye contact. "And," She jabbed him a third time, "That!" Another jab, "Is!" Another. "The!" Jab. "Point!" Jab. "I!" Jab. "Am trying!" Jab. "To get!" Jab. "You to!" Jab. "Understand!" One last jab before her hand dropped to her hip again. "Herr Arc! No one expects instantaneous results! But! That is not an excuse to not try! And you are not trying!"

"But every time I try, I fail!" Jaune protested, gesturing to himself in emphasis.

"And! Your point is?! As I fail! To see both the relevance! And the proof! Of that!" She brought her hand up again to keep jabbing him. "I! Do not see a failure in front of me right now! Herr Arc! Do you think I would waste time on a failure!? Do you think Fruline Nikos would waste hers!? Do you think Ritter Ozpin and Fraulein Goodwitch would waste theirs!?"

"Well, no…" Jaune hesitantly responded.  _Okay, I'm really getting weirded out by this._

"And that is my point! Now! I will not have you sitting around feeling sorry for yourself! Doing nothing to correct the situation! Herr Arc! Here is what you are going to do! You are going to go into your dorm room! Apologize to Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora for neglecting them as team leader over this last week! Then, you are going to get some sleep! So that you can lead your team properly on the trip tomorrow! And then you and I shall see if Frauline Nikos' offer still stands! And if it does, you are going to take it! Am I clear?!"

"Yeah-Yes, Ma'am!" Jaune nodded at the drill-sergeant-nun's words. "But, uh, what about Cardin?"  _This is just too strange._

"I will deal with him, if and when he becomes a problem! Now, dismissed!" With that, Ruby's hands left her hips, and she turned to her own dorm room.

"I meant what I have said, Jaune." She threw over her shoulder as she opened the door, speaking in her normal, soft tone. "Goodnight."  _What. Was. That._

…

…

"Yes, students, the forest of Forever Fall is indeed beautiful. But we are not here to sight-see. Professor Peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside this forest, and I'm here to make sure none of you die while doing so." Professor Goodwitch told the assembled students as Teams RWBY, JNPR, and CDRL followed the deputy headmaster through the bright-red-leaved trees.

Goodwitch stopped, and turned to the students as she continued.

"Each of you is to gather one jar's worth of red sap," She stated, raising a jar full of what Ruby presumed was the red sap in question, "However, this forest is full of the creatures of grimm, so be sure to stay by your teammates. We will rendezvous back here at 4 o'clock. Have fun." With that the deputy headmistress promptly turned and left the students standing around.

Ruby turned to her team.

"So, any ideas on why this is presumed to take several hours?" She asked, half-joking. Yang shrugged with a grin, Blake did the same without one, and Weiss just stared down at the jar in her hand.

"Ah, well. We may as well do the assigned task. I am going to go talk with team JNPR." The Knight announced.

…

…

"No."

"What did you just say?" Cardin Winchester narrowed his eyes at the blonde boy in front of him.

"I said no." Jaune repeated himself, crossing his arms to keep the fact his hands were shaking from showing.

He'd actually taken Ruby's drill-sergeant-pep-talk from the previous night to heart, and while it hadn't completely smoothed things over with Pyrrha when he'd apologized, it had started doing so.

More than that, he'd actually been thinking about what she'd said, and had come to the conclusion he'd been being an idiot. She was right, Ruby and Pyrrha and the staff at Beacon wouldn't waste their time on a failure. The teachers, at least, were probably way too good at spotting failures to bother with one, and probably so were Ruby and Pyrrha, so therefore, he couldn't be one. At least, not too big a failure to fix, anyway.

"Jaunie boy, are you really sure that's what you want to do?" Cardin asked him, stepping forward in a threatening manner.

"Do whatever you want to me, but I won't let you hurt my friends." Jaune jutted his chin out slightly as he spoke.

"Alright, we're doing this the… Hard… Way?" Cardin trailed off as his eyes focused on something behind Jaune. "Hey! Who are you?" He shouted. His team joined him in looking confused.

Jaune risked a quick turnaround to see what had caught CDRL's attention.

A young woman was walking across the clearing towards them, a woman Jaune didn't recognize.

She wore a short robe-dress, obviously armored but without sleeves, though she did have armored gloves that reached most of the way up her arms. A strange visor of some sort covered the upper part of her face, framed by short brown hair.

"Hey!" Cardin pushed past Jaune, walking towards the woman. "I'm talking to you!"

The woman raised her right arm to the side as she continued across the clearing,

"Are you-" Cardin stopped and began to back away as the woman's arm from the elbow down morphed into a blade significantly longer than the arm had been.

"Umkommen." Her voice was cold and flat, but at the same time, her tone was absolutely chilling.

With a sudden burst of speed that was too quick to see, she crossed the clearing, and swung the arm-blade down on a frozen Cardin.

…

…

{End, Chapter 9}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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